Trickster's Sanctuary
by Sage Clover
Summary: Michael and Gabriel bring home two fledglings and Zachariah has been misinformed about the current state of affairs. No, now is not a good time to get the vessels to say yes. There is also pain, because He left, and His children still have to find ways to pick up the pieces, even if they would prefer not to. Sequel to Trickster's Haven.
1. Chapter 1

f you recognize it, it doesn't belong to me. I don't own Harry Potter. Or Supernatural. Or Norse mythology. This story uses the Norse mythology where Loki had seven children. It makes the Marvel adjustment that Loki was raised as Odin's son.

I would like to thank my diligent proofreaders, NathyFaith and ThallenCambricaltran. I'd also like to thank the discord group. They're an inspiration and a force of nature. This story would not exist if not for them.

This is AU, and a quick note before we start: Some timeline stuff had to be adjusted accordingly. Nothing prior to Changing Channels was changed. The horsemen were released, except Lucifer hasn't gotten around to binding/releasing/summoning death.

Abandon All Hope and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid didn't happen. The order of events was the following: 99 Problems, the first part of Dark Side of the Moon Happens right before the events of Trickster's Haven that could be considered my version of Hammer of the Gods. The second half of Dark Side of the Moon and Point of No Return... we're not there yet but we're about to be.

 **Summary:** Michael and Gabriel bring home two fledglings and Zachariah has been misinformed about the current state of affairs. No, now is not a good time to get the vessels to say yes. There is also pain, because He left, and His children still have to find ways to pick up the pieces, even if they would prefer not to.

* * *

Gabriel and Michael knew the instant Raphael almost exploded in his efforts to fix Lucifer. Archangels and angels had always been connected to each other in one way or another. Part of the punishment in the Cage was being unable to hear or bond to the rest of the choir and the Morningstar was completely alone.

Father had decided to cast Lucifer out, what if he decided to cast out someone else? The youngest archangel feared his fate and decided to leave. He couldn't take his older siblings bickering anymore. Gabriel muted himself to the choir, mimicking an archangel's death. No one would look for him if they believed him to be dead.

Raphael's carelessness was known to the other two archangels for three reasons. The moment he expended as much power as he was able to, all the angels felt it. It was an explosion that echoed in their grace. This was followed by his own presence in the angel network diminishing. He had not died and his presence was not gone, but it had been a close call and neither Michael or Gabriel were happy.

The third significant indicator that something had occurred was the two archangels hearing the return of a voice to the host that they had believed they would never hear this way again. Only the two archangels could hear him yet, he wasn't connected to the complete angel network. It was Lucifer, but it wasn't Lucifer as he had been when he had been cast out of heaven. It wasn't even Lucifer as he had been in the days between being offered the Mark and taking it. No, Gabriel and Michael heard what they had believed they would never hear again. An incensed fledgling Lucifer was shouting about the injustice of finding himself all alone with another sleeping fledgling.

Michael and Gabriel flew, following the grace of their siblings to the room Raphael had mostly destroyed. The physical blast from his grace had burned the walls and floor of the room. The windows had shattered outwards.

Two little beings were near the center of the room. The three and a half foot child was standing, shouting in Enochian. Not all of it was intelligible, even to the archangels. Didn't children just scream to be screaming, sometimes? He seemed to have a vessel of his own, blue eyes and dirty blonde hair.

The second fledgling was even smaller than Lucifer, not even all of three feet. He was sleeping, lying prone on the floor, halfway between being on his side and his front. His head rested on his outstretched arm and one wing was draped haphazardly over his body like a blanket.

"Mica!" Lucifer exclaimed, "Gabby!"

Like Raphael earlier, Michael didn't have a vessel. As long as he didn't go near any humans, everything should be fine. Gabriel still had the vessel he had created for himself and was on the same plane as the fledglings.

"What happened?" Michael asked. He was pretty sure he knew the answer, but it seemed like a good idea to get Lucifer's side, if he had any idea what was going on.

"Raphy bathed me," Lucifer grumbled. "I don't want baths from Raphy anymore."

Gabriel picked Raphael up from the floor. The fledgling shivered, wings shifting with an instinctual need to keep him warm. He was about the size of a human two or three year old and didn't wake. His fingers latched onto Gabriel's grace, seeking the warmth the other provided.

"Luci," Michael said, "Would you like to come visit an old friend?"

"Can we go see mommy and daddy?"

Gabriel grinned. Loki may have carried the twins in the first universe, but Sigyn had fully intended to do so. It didn't matter that she hadn't. To the twins, she was mom and Loki was dad.

He snapped his fingers, conjuring a blanket to wrap around Raphael. His brother needed to sleep and keeping his temperature stable would help. "Shall we, then?"

Michael flew them back to Sigyn's house. He hesitated on the stoop. Raphael had been ready to raise Lucifer himself if this happened and if Sigyn wanted nothing to do with a fledgling. Michael knew Sigyn better than Raphael and that she would have nothing against fledglings running around, but this was still the archangel that had almost killed her. Could that be forgiven?

The door opened. Hela was still sitting cross-legged on the counter nearest the stairs with a book in her hands. She was looking at the door, and them. "Well don't just stand there," she insisted. "You all live here, don't you?"

Michael didn't really have an answer to that. He thought he might want to live here, maybe, but somebody had to run heaven. With Lucifer and Raphael both fledglings again and Gabriel with no interest in returning, who did that leave in charge of heaven except himself? Wasn't heaven his responsibility even when things like this came up?

"Hela!" Luci shouted. The fledgling burst forward, but instead of running across the floor as he may have intended, his wings flapped twice, launching the fledgling up and over towards Hela. Lucifer crashed into the woman, sending her tumbling off the table towards the floor as he clung to her.

The moment before Hela's head could hit the floor, she stopped falling.

"Hela, haven't I asked you not to sit up there?" Loki finished descending the stairs and stepped out into the kitchen. His black hair was more disheveled than it usually was, locks of hair covering the scar on his forehead. "I can't make dinner when you're on the counter." he turned his head, looking at the archangels standing at the threshold. "You're not vampires, are you? I was sure I heard Hela invite you to come inside and please close the door."

Gabriel and Michael stepped inside and the latter closed the door.

Lucifer scrambled off Hela's chest. "Daddy!"

"Please don't fly in the house." Loki looked from Lucifer to the other two.

"That goes for everyone," a lilting feminine voice added. Sigyn stepped around the corner, joining her husband in the kitchen. Taking in all the faces, she grinned. This was her home as it was meant to be. Two faces were missing, but she knew Jor and Fen were around here somewhere.

Lucifer ran towards Sigyn. "Mommy, I sowwy," the fledgling wailed.

Sigyn knelt to eye level slowly. "It's okay. Your brother healed me, no harm done. Don't do it again?"

Lucifer agreed easily, curling himself into Mama because he needed a hug. Sigyn put an arm around him, knowing that's what he wanted.

Michael approached Sigyn. "Are you okay?" he asked quietly.

Sigyn nodded. She might have spoken something, but she didn't get that opportunity.

After spending weeks in the presence of his siblings, Fenrir had been able to leave behind some of his rigid training from heaven and join his siblings in acting like the exuberant immortal children they had never had the opportunity to be.

Tag had always been a favorite with Sigyn's children. That it was played by her children who would shift, solely because they could, was inevitable.

Jor was at home in any snake shape. He had once been born as a snake, after all. Fenrir, a wolf. No one had expected the twins to return now, and the two boys had been too involved to consider how their actions would be viewed.

Fenrir was chasing Jor, who had decided that if all of his siblings could fly in their own ways, he would as well. The flying and feathered Quetzalcoatl flew through the hallway and around the counter in the kitchen, headed straight for the door.

Hot on his tail was a giant wolf. Sigyn's house was designed with their shifted forms in consideration. The reaction of the twins was unexpected, but not a surprise.

Lucifer screamed, assaulted by memories of another wolf and another child.

Michael had been stoic since Lucifer fell and managed to remain silent. That did not mean he did not remember all of it.

" _How will Loki feel if one of his children dies as one of mine has died?" Two little boys, kidnapped from their beds, listened as those who should have treated Loki better plotted their destruction._

 _One boy was bespelled wolf and the other was the boy. Even in that moment, neither could remember their own name._

 _The nature of the wolf opposed the desire of the boy that was the wolf. The wolf was frightened, angry, out for blood. The only target available was the other boy, trembling in terror, fear scent delicious to the wolf._

 _But someone misunderstood. The boy who was also wolf and the boy who was boy, they were twins. They were twins who could not stand to be separated because it left them feeling like half a person._

 _The wolf overpowered the boy that was wolf. It's easy to manipulate and control that which was not whole to begin with. Overpowered and attacked, viciously, the twin. There was blood as the wolf clawed and scratched and devoured because the wolf was beyond reason._

 _The boy that was boy surrendered easily to the wolf. Didn't move, didn't struggle, couldn't, wouldn't. He couldn't fight back. He was screaming, even as the boy trapped in the wolf was. This was not supposed to happen. This was not the way it should have been._

"Michael. Michael, you're safe here. Do you remember where you are?"

Michael exhaled. This was home. This was home that heaven had never and would never be. It was quiet. Lucifer was no longer screaming. Jor and Fenrir had slipped outside. Gabriel had taken Raphael upstairs and Lucifer must have gone with them.

Michael inhaled and wiped his mouth. The coppery taste lingered. He blinked.

Sigyn's hazel eyes were inches from his face, brow furrowed as she eyed him with knowing concern. "Michael?"

He took another staggering breath. He was safe here. None of them would let anything happen to Sigyn or Loki, and nothing would happen to them here. If ever there was safety in numbers, it was going to be Sigyn's home. "I'm…." He was far from fine. It would take time, for all of them. And he wasn't about to lie to Sigyn. She'd suss out the truth as good as any feather of truth. Hadn't Sigyn been….? "I'll be alright."

Sigyn kept staring at him, but she didn't repeat herself. Loki made a small amount of noise as he set to work preparing some meal. Hela helped with the preparation. Loki cursed as he dropped something on the ground, ruining the dinner he was trying to make.

Sigyn glanced in Loki's direction. "I'll check on Slip, see if the kids are settling in. Will you make sure Fen and Jor haven't destroyed my yard?"

Sigyn went upstairs. Gabriel came downstairs and sat with Michael at the counter while Hela finished dinner preparations.

Loki went outside. Jor and Fen were sitting on the bottom stair of the porch in silence. Fen looked up at the sound of the door closing, giving Loki his best rendition of a kicked puppy expression. He'd possibly stolen it from Sam Winchester.

Loki sat on the top step, letting his feet lie between the two boys. "You two know you're not to blame for that, right?" Fen blinked. Loki sighed. "You two shouldn't have been playing tag in the house, but it's not your fault the twins couldn't handle seeing a wolf, Fen. Not your fault. You're not the one who transformed one of them into a wolf."

Fenrir nodded. Loki looked over at Jor. "Lucifer knocked Hela off the table, so Sigyn and I are in agreement that there's to be no flying in the house. You can all fly as much as you want inside the wards, as long as you do so outside. You should probably not play tag inside either, isn't 'No running in the house' a normal rule?"

Jor gave a wry smile, while Fen was still tense. "Are we normal though? Eight immortal godlings… We're probably not going to injure ourselves."

"Let Sigyn have that," Loki suggested. "Besides, what if anyone who is not immortal comes here? If Lucifer had knocked anyone else off that counter it could have ended worse than it did."

"Fledglings can't always control their flight," Fenrir said. His wings twisted, acknowledging his own distress. "Human children sometimes run when they're trying to walk. Fledglings… They're adding flying into the mix."

Loki shrugged. "Okay. So don't purposefully fly in the house." The two boys didn't say anything in response, so they sat there in silence. "You don't have to stay out here if you don't want to," Loki finally said. "But I'm going to see how Hela is coming with dinner."

* * *

Fenrir went back inside a little while later. Gabriel was entertaining Lucifer in the next room and he could hear quiet talking from upstairs.

"Please don't send me away," Raphael was saying, "I don't want to leave." Along with Michael's response, "Oh, Kiddo. We want you here. We won't keep you against your will, but we'll never push you out of the nest before you're ready, either."

"Why does Raphael think we don't want him here?" Hela asked, looking up from the meal she was making. "He did so much for Mother because he thought we wouldn't accept him unconditionally. Even after he healed Mother just because Slip asked him to."

Gabriel looked over from where he was playing with Lucifer. "Michael didn't say as much, but I think Raph may have spent the last few millennia mostly in solitude. That'd be hard on anyone."

There was a quiet conversation between Michael and Sigyn, which everyone politely pretended they couldn't hear, but then Sigyn asked, "May I hold Raphael?"

"Sure," Michael replied. There was shuffling as he would have passed the fledgling over, and then he came downstairs.

"Is Raphael alright?" Hela asked.

"He thinks we would send him away," Michael said sadly. "What did I do wrong?"

"It's not on you," Gabriel said. "It was Him. He shouldn't have left."

Fenrir perked his head up at the mention of Him, but tried not to look like he was more invested than idle curiosity would account for. He wondered if Sam and Dean had made it to Joshua yet. What would Joshua say? Could Joshua tell them where He was? He'd suggested it to the Winchesters before Lucifer had stabbed Sigyn, and before Raphael had done whatever it was that he had done to Lucifer. He should tell the Winchesters the apocalypse was cancelled. He realized that it had been several days since he had contacted them in heaven. Had everything gone well?

"Castiel? You alright?" Michael asked.

Fen swallowed. He turned his head in their direction, but wouldn't meet Michael's eyes. He could still hear the twins screaming in his mind. _He'd caused that_. He may not have been the one to turn one of them into a wolf, but his own wolfish nature had certainly not helped anything in a playful moment of impulsivity. It didn't matter whether he or Jor had started that game. What mattered was in that moment of foolishness, _he'd_ scared them. Not anyone else.

He almost flinched when feathers brushed against his shoulder. _How long had it been?_ Fen wondered. _A long time. Before Anael was promoted to garrison leader._ He couldn't remember, and as he made an effort at doing so, he found that a lot of his memories were fuzzy or blank.

"Fenrir?" The feathers brushed his shoulder again, and it must have been Michael because that voice was so close. "Will you tell me what you're thinking?"

Fenrir wanted nothing more than lean into Michael's wing. It had been too long since he'd been able to fully appreciate the closeness of another angel besides Gabriel that didn't want him dead. He might have been Sigyn and Loki's son first, but that didn't suddenly eradicate the last few millennia of this universe and by Father, he missed them. But Raphael had smote him. Raphael had smote him, and Father had brought him back, but Raphael hadn't believed it because he had still thought He was dead. Fen had Sigyn and Loki now, but he hadn't had them then, and he'd just wanted to do what was right.

Michael hugged Castiel. "Talk to me," he whispered.

Fenrir let out a shuddering breath. "I looked for Him. He brought me back after Raphael smote me and I had thought that He might help end the apocalypse because I didn't remember yet and I didn't know what else to do. I just wanted to do the right thing, but heaven didn't want me back, and our angelic brothers and sisters were dying..."

"I'm sorry, Fen. I'm sorry," Michael said. He ran a finger along the edge of Castiel's wings. They weren't especially disheveled, but they were still quivering and Michael wanted to soothe them. Where had he messed up? How had he gotten so off track pretending he wanted the apocalypse just so he could get his twin back that he'd allowed this to happen to his other siblings?

"I'm sorry too," Fen mumbled into Michael's shoulder. He was still tense, but Michael's embrace was tight and comforting. "I'm sorry about earlier."

"Hey, don't apologize," Michael said. "You were a wolf before any of that other stuff happened and if you want to be a wolf, you get to be a wolf."

" _Help! Castiel, if you can hear me, help us, please! Zachariah-"_ Sam Winchester was praying for him? Usually, he left it to Dean. Fen wondered if he should apologize for calling Sam an abomination that one time. Sam had prayed frequently from childhood, and he had always been told by his superiors that Sam didn't deserve anything from them because he was an abomination, but he wasn't sure he agreed. Sam's soul had always looked old, but even with the tain from the demon blood, it hadn't looked broken or damaged. The strength of it was inspiring. Even after everything it had ever faced and been poisoned with, Sam's soul had only ever come out stronger.

Fen pulled away from Michael, wings bending, ready to go to the Winchesters' aid. Then the next whisper reached him. " _Cas, I'm sorry, but I have to- Yes, Michael. Yes! A thousand times yes, if you'll just bring them back!"_

Fenrir froze. He glanced at Michael, who was already looking at him.

"I'll deal with Zachariah," Michael said. "You should stay here, Castiel. I will not harm the Winchesters, and I would not take a coerced Vessel."


	2. Chapter 2

Here's the next chapter! If it's a sloth, it's property of TheRiverScribe. I appreciate the hard work by my beloved proof-readers nathyfaith and ThallenCambricaltran. And the discord group was also an amazing help because this would not exist at all if I hadn't found them. They're a force of nature and their ideas are so very helpful. This is not the last chapter of this work. I foresee at least three more chapters, and when Muse says it's time to write, I do. Muse likes Thallen and Thallen likes more.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"- Oscar Wilde

* * *

As a fledgling archangel, Gabriel had a strange fascination with a specific creation of his Father. One of his older siblings had called it a horse. He felt some kind of kinship with the furry four legged creature. At the same time he felt as if he was connected to the strange animal, as if a song older than time itself played in his grace. It was this nagging feeling that something was missing, even though he was surrounded by all his Father's creation.

Gabriel dreamed of an eight legged colt, a world tree, and a young man. _"Mama!"_ They were good dreams, but he was always melancholy upon awakening. His grace would hum quietly, longing spread through his entire being because something, _someone,_ was missing. But he could never remember who it was because the _memories that shouldn't exist_ were always just out of reach.

He wasn't the only one who dreamed of strange other worlds, and as a precocious fledgling, it was not difficult for Gabriel to figure out about Michael and Lucifer. The twins shared their own strange dreams, that were plagued by wolves and death. Wolves did not scare Gabriel. Exactly once, the littlest archangel recalled dreaming of a girl, a wolf, and a snake. His grace thrummed louder in longing and regret, _but he did not know why_.

Only Raphael could soothe Gabriel when his grace _ached_ from his strange dreams. But they weren't just dreams, they were memories, even if he wasn't quite ready to wonder why he remembered other worlds. The twins couldn't help when Gabriel's grace _whimpered_. Michael was fire and Lucifer was ice. They'd never hurt him, but his grace only whispered inaudible nonsense, _"Vali, Nari,"_ and wouldn't calm, becoming more and more agitated as they tried to help.

Raphael would never shout, but the resulting contorted mess of twisted grace and molting feathers and _tears_ from their baby brother was enough for him to send Michael and Lucifer careening out of the way because _by Father!_ they were not healers and maybe, probably, Raphael could calm this maelstrom of distressed fledgling.

Gabriel learned that Raphael did not dream, and the healer could only guess as to why Gabriel's grace so despaired. None of them would discuss their dreams with each other. They were not spoken of, as though by keeping silent they were not acknowledging their consistent dreaming of things that could not possibly have ever occured.

Gabriel enjoyed playing with Father's creations and at one point, convinced Him to let him help. The result was a sloth. This fuzzy creature that moved slowly and often appeared to spend most of its time contemplating the universe. He wasn't _trying_ to mock Raphael. Not really. Gabriel lived to irritate his siblings, but he loved them and with this, he was only trying to imitate Raphael. He was successful. Raphael loved it. So much that he kept the first sloth. It was his friend and most of the time, Raphael felt that the sloth understood him better than his siblings did.

Michael was a good -eldest brother, trying to keep Lucifer and Gabriel out of trouble. Lucifer taught the littlest fledgling everything he wanted to know, though Gabe was often Raphael's shadow.

Raphael was the quiet one. He healed his brothers when they got into trouble and he studied the books in the library or his Father's creations. He could, and often would, watch an entire life cycle of a flower or an animal, if his brothers didn't pull him away.

Gabriel made it his mission to shadow Raphael because he didn't want his brother to get lonely. Lucifer and Michael completed one another. Gabriel just wanted that for himself or for Raphael.

The platypus was supposed to be a joke. Kind of. But it was too much fun to pass up. Raphael was helping Father paint some hillsides and Gabriel was bored. He liked ducks, but what if it was a mammal that had fur instead of feathers? And nursed it's young, but laid eggs? It needed a way to defend itself, so it should be poisonous. But what if… ?

He should be glad it was Raphael that found him instead of Father.

"Gabriel!"

Gabriel, grinning, proud of himself in a way that only a toddler (or a fledgling) could be, he held up his creation towards his older brother. "It's a platypus!"

Raphael blinked. He didn't laugh, as Lucifer might have, or scold, as Michael would have. He merely blinked. "Okay…" He considered. He loved his sloth, but Father must have known more than Raph had ever figured out, because Gabriel had been banned from creature makings without a very proper supervision.

"Come see what Father and I did," Raphael finally said, an idea forming in his head. Gabriel agreed easily, so Raphael brought his little brother and the platypus to the valley they had been painting that morning. There was water in the bottom of the valley. There was green grass going out away from the water.

There were rocks on the bank of the river. Gabriel put down the platypus so he could crawl around on the ground and get a better look at the rocks. Raphael walked slowly around the edge of the water and Gabriel followed on his hands and knees. "Look at this one!" Gabriel cried, picking a rock up off the ground. It had a sharp edge and if he'd been human, he might have cut himself. The rock was a piece of smokey white crystal. The top of it was almost clear enough to see through.

Raphael turned to look at his little brother and smiled. "Quartz," he identified. He picked up the platypus. The small creature had followed them as well. "I'm going to find this little guy a home, okay?"

Gabriel offered no argument. The stone ended up in his mouth. It was too big to swallow and even if he did, it wasn't going to hurt him, so Raphael let it go. _Fledglings,_ the older brother thought fondly. That's not to say he wasn't a fledgling, because he definitely was, but younger siblings.

Raphael found a nice home for the platypus and when Lucifer found out, he wanted to make more creatures to populate what would be an island. He let his children do as they would with the one island. He'd considered scolding Gabriel for the platypus, but there wasn't really any reason to, and the creatures Lucifer made were just as unique. Michael wanted in on the action too, and also made a few creatures to add to the island.

* * *

The first spider was an acromantula and only the fledgling that made it knew for certain who did it. Michael thought Gabriel had done it and Gabriel thought Lucifer did it. Lucifer, he wouldn't say what he thought. When accused he'd smiled wryly. It wasn't Gabriel because he never would have thought to apply the concept of an eight legged creature outside his dream of an eight legged colt.

No one realized that it was actually Raphael. He had not made any creatures yet, preferring instead to sculpt and paint the land or study the creatures already made. But just because his siblings chose not to discuss their dreams it didn't mean that Raphael didn't know about them. He was a healer and he knew the siblings he loved dearly. He knew that Michael and Lucifer could not stand being anywhere near Father's wolves and that Gabriel had mostly pleasant dreams of being an eight legged colt.

Raphael making the spider didn't actually have anything to do with the horse or the dreams. He did it because he wanted to and his brothers enjoyed it. Even if they thought it was a prank of some sort.

The idea of making dragons was collective to the four fledglings from the beginning. It was one of the rare days when all four of them were sitting in their garden sunning their wings, and Raphael posed it as what was supposed to be merely a hypothetical question. He should have known better.

"What if we made a creature with each of our favorite attributes?" Raphael asked. "Could we make a creature if we all worked together? I'd want it to be able to fly."

"Can it have scales?" Lucifer begged.

"And claws?" Michael suggested.

"I want it to breathe fire!" Gabriel exclaimed.

"..."

"..."

"No!" Lucifer cried. "I want it to breathe poison!"

Michael winced, looking over the heads of his brothers to get a better look at Raphael, who was also wincing. And giving him an apologetic half smile, eyes shining. Michael couldn't remember Raphael making any of his own creatures. Maybe a bird here or there. But most of the creatures they had made had been by Lucifer and himself, with the occasional weird addition Gabriel came up with. Raphael, for the most part, just wanted to paint rocks. But Michael knew his brothers. He knew that Raphael wanted this just as much as Lucifer and Gabriel, even if he wasn't going to say anything because the other two were about to ruin it and Michael knew he couldn't say no. Not over this. Michael sighed. "What if we make multiple ones that are different and one that has both?"

Lucifer and Gabriel looked at each other, but they both easily agreed. Making more was always more fun than fighting over one.

So they got to work making what would later be called dragons. Michael and Raphael did most of the work on the first one. It was a green scaly thing with feathered wings. It had a long slender body and four limbs with claws. The baby dragon hiccupped, spitting fire and poison.

Gabriel giggled. "'Nother one!"

"I wanna try!" Lucifer exclaimed. He tried doing what Michael and Raphael had done to make the first one, creating first a broad shouldered body with stubby limbs and leathery wings like a bat. This one hiccupped lightning.

"Ooh! Now a steam one!" Gabriel shouted. "Raphy, please?"

"Go ahead," Raphael said. "I'll help, if you need it."

Michael was content to watch his siblings make dragons. Gabriel and Lucifer did the brunt of the creating, though Michael was pleased to note that Raphael made a few unique ones of his own.

The evening of dragon creating ended when Gabriel fell asleep curled up next to the smallest of the new dragons and one of Lucifer's escaped the garden and needed to be chased by Michael because Lucifer was sitting next to a tree yawning and rubbing his eyes, too exhausted to chase after it himself.

Raphael scooped up Gabriel and his new pet (because Gabriel was not letting go of it) and tried to herd Lucifer in the direction of bed. They were only able to exit the garden before Lucifer dozed off and fell over. Raphael could not carry Lucifer, who was bigger than he was, and Gabriel, and the baby dragon.

Michael put the dragon back in the garden and went to find his brothers. Raphael had dozed off while leaning against the fence and was still holding the sleeping Gabriel and the dragon that was also sleeping. Lucifer was curled around his feet, also sleeping.

Michael smiled. "Alright," he whispered. "Let's get you all into bed." He picked Lucifer up, (because even though they were twins, Michael was the bigger of the two by enough that this was possible) and prodded Raphael awake just enough that he could be guided into motion.

Lucifer's room was closest, so Michael quickly and with relative ease tucked his twin into bed. Lucifer didn't stir at all, because he was the heaviest sleeper of them all. Gabriel's room was next, and when he and Raphael arrived, Michael pried Gabriel and the dragon out of Raphael's sleepy grasp and tucked them into their bed. Raphael's room was next to Lucifer's, and by that point he was awake enough to put himself to bed.

Michael…. His room was all the way at the other end of the building, so with Raphael put to bed he chose to sit down for a second to catch his breath, and ended up falling asleep right where he sat.

* * *

Gabriel kept the piece of quartz. It was his. Raphael kept his sloth and Gabriel kept the rock. Then Michael was casting down Lucifer and all Gabriel could do was stand there. He couldn't pick a side. This was _so wrong_ that he had to leave. _It should have been them against the world. It had been, for so long,_ but Gabriel still couldn't remember why this felt so much worse.

Father was gone, Lucifer was gone, and Gabriel didn't know what to do with himself. He was a little bit afraid that someone would decide it was he who needed to be cast asunder and he wasn't willing to wait for that to happen. So he ran. He muted himself to the choir to mimic an archangel's death and left everything behind. Except for his piece of quartz. He couldn't bare to part with it because even as his world was falling apart, Raphael had always been there for him. If his next older sibling got to keep the first sloth, Gabriel got to keep the rock that would remind him how much he didn't want to do this. _But he had to_.

The quartz shattered into many pieces as Gabriel hit Earth and hid a part of himself so deep that it would never be found again. Or so he hoped. It would not do for it to alert any of his siblings that he was still alive. He wasn't sure why it shattered, except even as he was hiding himself he could _feel_ Raphael's agony. It was one thing to mute himself, another to stop hearing the choir altogether. Gabriel had not intended to deafen himself, but he could not bare to listen to the cacophony that he had caused. Listening would only make him change his mind and he _couldn't do that_. So after gathering up all the pieces of the shattered quartz, he headed for the one place he had been avoiding and the one place he thought someone could help him.

Gabriel often thought about his older brother. If he was still working on landscapes and strange creatures. Raphael mused on the lack of laughter and joy Gabriel's departure had left in heaven. Michael was strict and cold since casting Lucifer out, and with Father gone, the lonely Healer decided to explore his own imagination. If the littlest archangel had made an animal as strange as a platypus, why couldn't he?

And that's how the first unicorn was created. Raphael had been thinking about Gabriel and his love of horses while staring at a fluffy cloud white as snow. _Pure_. That's what this animal would be a symbol of infinite possibilities, of purity and grace. Of youth. He didn't stop there, crafting different creature. He got inspired by Father's humanity and fishes, mixing they both together and creating what he later called merpeople.

* * *

Somehow, everything brought them to this exact moment.

Somehow, everything brought them to this exact moment.

 _His mother's death. His after despair. His death. Sam's death. Sam's addiction to demon blood. Each and every friend they had met and lost. A freaking angel raising him from perdition, said angel of the lord disappearing only for another angel of the lord to come and bite them in the ass._

Dean felt his insides turn to mush. _They were dead_. They had just met Adam and now both of his little brothers were gone. The two people he loved more than life itself were gone and to what end? Just because he was too afraid to allow some angel to ride his body? How was this fair?

Sam, _oh Sammy_ , he had had so much faith. So much more than he ever had that there was some good in the world. A brilliant deity and its first creations that kept the world from "kabooming" into itself?

Dean never had that kind of faith, although he still thought this was a piss poor way for them to repay his little brothers – the ones he was raised to protect. Perhaps, perhaps Michael could be reasoned with. Perhaps he was awkward but good, like Cas had been. He knew he couldn't kill Zachariah without an angel blade, and despite the angel's insistence that he was indeed an angel of utmost importance, Dean was sure the archangel could adjust his priorities for his True Vessel. And in case he didn't, Dean would fight him. He had held out against Alistair for thirty years, he could withstand Zachariah. " _Cas- Cas, I'm sorry, but I have to-" Have to do this, have to say yes. He'd sold his soul for Sammy once. He would do it again, and again, if that's what it took. Heaven was_ wrong, damnit. _If Sam had but asked him…. He would have gone with his little brother. It wasn't about Sam getting away from him, it was about Sam getting away from John Fucking Winchester. It may have taken years, but Dean understood that now, and maybe, maybe it wasn't too late to tell Sam that. "Yes, Michael. Yes! A thousand times yes, if you'll just bring them back!"_

Dean inhaled dramatically. Hoping he would eventually feel his body being taken. But nothing happened. Nada, niente, nothing. If his entire body didn't scream pain whenever he moved the slightest he probably would have fought Zachariah already. But his broken bones prevented him from doing so.

"What a pity you are, Dean Winchester. Stop losing your breath. Just say yes, you insolent child. You are Michael's true vessel, this is your destiny. Embrace it!"

"Give my brothers back and I might just consider it," he snarled in response. Damn it, he had already said yes. What was taking Michael so long?

Zachariah paced in Dean's peripheral vision and the hunter braced himself. Again, nothing happened. It was getting ridiculous. Dean opened his eyes to find a figure standing in front of Zachariah. After going back into the past and Anna nearly killing Sammy, it wasn't difficult to recall that the man standing there definitely appeared to be the John Winchester of 1978. Except the posture was different, because it had been really easy to tell that Michael wearing John Winchester was not John Winchester himself. And wasn't that confusing to Dean, but that's just the way it was.

"Zachariah." Michael's voice echoed with the force of a thunder. "How dare you?"

The tension could be felt in the air. If a single needle fell right now, Dean bet it could be heard. "You insubordinate gloryhound! You little piece of shit! Don't you understand the mess you've made?!" Michael walked towards the younger angel - even though he was using an elder vessel - with propose.

His anger surrounded the place, making Dean feel goosebumps on his skin. "I don't recall giving you any orders. Less one that involved coercing a Vessel to consent to me! And the Winchesters? I am greatly disappointed." The archangel saw Dean barely standing and inqueried, his eyes lightning, "What in Father's name have you done to the Vessels?"

Zachariah was about to retort, but Michael waved his left hand, a tape appearing in his lips to silence the angel. With another delicate wave of his hand Dean was healed in an instant and Sam and Adam were brought back to life and healed, waking up on the dirt floor.

"Zachariah. I demand an explanation." Michael's voice caused the walls to shake. It was loud to the humans, but not as bad as Michael's **true** **voice** would have been.

Zachariah removed the tape Michael had tried to inconvenience him with. "I was preparing your Vessel for you." A slightly wheedling tone had entered his voice.

Dean was sure that if it had not been beneath him, Michael would have snorted. As it was, Dean could feel the gaze of the archangel staring at him. It was an intense gaze, as though staring at his soul. Then again, he probably was.

"This is not my Vessel."

"What do you mean he's not your vessel?" Zachariah exclaimed. "He's the righteous man!"

"I did not suggest otherwise," Michael replied. "This is the righteous man and he is not my vessel." He was doing that staring thing again. "Are you blind? Look at this soul. It is very young, despite having been to hell for forty years. It would not survive a possession by a being such as myself."

"He is a worm! Why do you care?!"

"Be silent! I have had enough of your insolence! And I am still considering smiting you."

"Excuse me, how the fuck am I not your vessel?" Dean was yelling now. "What the hell? Even Gabriel said-"

"You have spoken with…? Oh, yes, of course. He did mention that. He did not mention that there's no way you could possibly be my vessel."

Dean experienced a weird sensation then. Michael watched him curiously and it felt a little like the time Castiel had carved their ribs, except less painful. Was…. Was Michael _petting_ his soul?!

"And the abomination?" Zachariah was looking towards Sam. "His soul is tarnished with the filth that he is! Is he not Lucifer's vessel?"

Michael's gaze turned from Dean to Sam, and far as Dean could tell he was still being petted. He would never admit it aloud, but it felt almost pleasant. "I think that his state as a vessel does not matter. Lucifer is… not currently capable of taking a vessel." The archangel continued staring at Sam's soul. "You are mistaken. This soul is hardly tarnished. It is very bright, brighter even than the Righteous Man's soul. It's also very old. I do think Gabriel has a point, though." He was nodded. "And Mother as well."

Mother?! Dean had no idea whom Michael was talking about, but he decided that this had to be the weirdest day of his life. Or was it his unlife? Roy and Walt had killed them that morning.

"This soul is very ancient," Michael explained. "Most souls don't reincarnate, they go onwards to the afterlife. If the soul doesn't go straight to the afterlife, it might become a ghost or spirit of some kind. But even that is a rarity, for when they're properly taken care of, they don't want to stick around. This soul is something different. Because some souls, some souls have a destiny, and they can't move forward to any afterlife until they have fulfilled their destiny. Sometimes…."

"I don't care! They are mud and they do not matter!" Zachariah's words were cruel, but he only echoed words similar to those his own superiors had been spewing for the last few millennia.

Michael glared at Zachariah. It was calculated and cold. "Oh brother, how far have you have fallen. I recall Father's last command was to love and observe them as we love him. Look at this two souls. Don't you think they could have something to teach us? Lucifer, Raphael and Gabriel are my brothers as much as the choir are my brothers and sisters. These two, they're more than willing to sell their souls so they won't be separated. If I'd loved Lucifer half as much as I thought I did, maybe I would have rebelled for him. I almost did as it was. Maybe in the end, I did. The cage wasn't meant to be opened, you know."

"And now you're going to kill Lucifer and bring down Paradise so Father will come home!"

Michael shook his head, tiredness in his eyes. The Winchester brothers each had a confused look on his face. Dean tilted his head, Michael had said a week ago that he would do just as Zachariah said. That he would kill Lucifer because he was a good son?

"Don't you suppose that if He wanted to come back, he would? No…. Lucifer is not your concern, and there's no apocalypse."

Zachariah scowled. "I did everything you wanted me to do! I found the vessels! But if they aren't the vessels, I can smite them for their insolence!" He moved, but not far. Michael had never stopped petting Dean, which was weird, because he was not some domestic animal to be coddled, but Michael was there.

"No, Zachariah. You are not going to smite the Winchesters. They are under my protection. Don't think I have forgotten why I am here. You're insolent, and disobedient, and I'm done listening to you threaten any humans." He snapped out, anger creeping back into his posture.

Michael then snapped his fingers, a trick unfortunately picked up from Gabriel. "Have some fun, my brother wanted to play a game with you."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked when Zachariah disappeared. "No saying yes to you, no saying yes to Lucifer, it's just… over?"

"Once upon a time, two brothers loved each other," Michael said. "Once upon a time, in a universe long since past, two brothers loved each other. And one of them killed the other, but not by choice. In that moment, they couldn't remember who they were, because for their whole lives, all that mattered was that there were two of them and they were inseparable. One brother killed the other and the whole universe fell apart. And they reincarnated throughout the universes that followed. Never too far apart, but something inevitably always happened to separate them. But this time… This time something changed."

"Yeah?" Dean was unconvinced. This was… strange. Even by their standards.

"Yes," Michael agreed. "I'm not sure yet what it was that changed, but the apocalypse has been cancelled. Castiel was supposed to tell you, but then this happened." He shook his head, and Dean could feel him remove whatever it was that was petting Dean from wherever it had been. He looked at them, all three of them, then at Adam. "Adam, you just want to return to your mother, correct?" The youngest Winchester barely had to nod before Michael had returned him safely to the heaven. He then looked at the two Winchesters.

"Were you able to find Joshua in the Garden? Castiel said he asked you to talk to him," Michael said.

"God wants Cas to stop looking for him," Dean replied.

Michael winced. "That… does not surprise me." He sighed. "Perhaps Gabriel was following in His steps more than we'd thought, if he's managed to hide himself amongst his favorite creations so successfully. I will talk to Castiel." Michael was silent long enough to gather his thoughts.

"I was going to offer you three choices, but, perhaps not. I would return the two of you to your bodies, unless you want to stay? You share a heaven, really. Whatever you think you saw, Zachariah was trying to make a point. You will not have to worry about him any more."

"Just send us back," Dean grumbled. "That's an option, right?"

"It is," Michael said. "And I can promise that you will not be bothered by any more angels, although I do believe that Castiel would be upset to lose your friendship. And my mother would like to meet you."

"Mother?" Sam asked.

"Yes. It's a long story involving reincarnation, but my parents were once known as Sigyn and Loki."

Dean choked. "Gabriel?" Sam asked, confusion coloring his voice as much as his face.

Michael would have raised an eyebrow. "What? No, why would you- ?" He considered. "Oh, I see. No, Gabriel is Sleipnir. Of all of us, he is most mischievous and when it was just him and Sigyn for a few thousand years, he embraced that part of himself. But as I said, Sigyn would like to meet you, eventually."

"Why?"

"I have no clue. It doesn't matter. Hmm…. Would you like to spend a few hours visiting your mother? For real, not whatever Zachariah came up with. Sigyn says she wants to bring you all cookies when they're done."

The Winchesters acquiesced. Michael sent them back to Heaven's Roadhouse and then he went home. Hela was still working on dinner and Sigyn had just started mixing the cookie dough, but was going to wait to put them in the oven so as to bring them hot cookies when their visit with their mother was over.

Castiel was still waiting for Michael in the kitchen. Michael wasn't sure where everyone else was, but they were not downstairs.

"Are the Winchesters okay?" Castiel asked.

"Zachariah killed Sam and Adam in an attempt to force Dean to submit to being my vessel. I reminded him that coercion is unacceptable and I healed the three of them. Gabriel will have fun with Zachariah, I believe." Michael glanced at his brother. Earlier he had only sought to comfort Castiel, but now that Michael really looked, what he saw concerned him. Why was Castiel falling? Why had Gabriel allowed it to continue?

" _Gabriel?"_ Michael whispered directly to his brother. " _Why haven't you restored Castiel's connection to heaven?"_

" _Who, me? Until yesterday you thought I was dead. Restoring Castiel would have been a dead giveaway. Besides. Aren't you the Prince of Heaven, Mikey?"_

Michael would have rolled his eyes. Instead, he reached a hand over to stroke the base of Castiel's wings. "Castiel, may I fix this?"

"Fix what?" he asked.

Michael wanted to wince. What in Father's name had happened to heaven? Zachariah was running around thinking that coercion and torture of humans was acceptable, Castiel believed that the fact that he was falling was not something that needed to be fixed, and Raphael was convinced that what he wanted and needed was at the very bottom of a hierarchy of what everyone else wanted. What was he supposed to do? Joshua had said that Father wasn't returning to heaven, which, considering everything he'd done, was probably for the best, but since Raphael and Lucifer were fledglings again, and Gabriel loved this life, how was he supposed to fix it on his own?

"Not alone, Michael," Hela said, scooping whatever she had made onto plates. "You have all of us, just ask."

"Thanks," Michael mumbled. He looked up to see that Sigyn was watching him again, but she didn't say anything.

Returning to the task at hand, Michael ran his other hand down Castiel's spine, along his wings. "This, Castiel. May I fix this? You should not be falling." Castiel gave Michael a confused nod. Michael closed his eyes, looking for Castiel's grace as he started lightly grooming the feathers. An angel falling meant that they were weren't receiving as much grace from heaven as they were supposed to be receiving. In some cases, not returning to heaven frequently enough could mimic the effects, but Michael would have no trouble telling the difference and he had been sure from his first glance that this was falling. He wondered momentarily if Annael had chosen to cut her grace off to prevent going through this. It was not common, but Michael was sure that most angels would find what Castiel had been going through to be agonizingly slow. And yet as far as he knew, Castiel had not mentioned it to anyone. Like he didn't even know that something was wrong.

Michael looked deeper, using the smallest bit of his own grace to rekindle Castiel's connection to his own. Following the pathways in Castiel's grace, Michael checked to make sure everything was the way it was supposed to be. He was not a healer like Raphael, but that didn't mean he wasn't capable of healing grace or reconnecting an angel to heaven in the event that someone was mistakenly disconnected.

As he followed a pathway, Michael found something that confused him. Across one of the pathways there was a scar. That in and of itself was not that much of a surprise, because in recent times, not all injuries had been treated as well as they could have been and scars were not as scarce as they ought to be. It still seemed like an odd place for a scar. Michael healed it, because it looked to be in a place that could prevent grace from returning to Castiel as it was supposed to. He continued along this pathway and found another scar, and then another, and another.

" _Do you remember how you came by these injuries?"_ Michael asked.

" _What injuries?"_

From where he was in Castiel's grace, Michael knew that Castiel was telling the truth, that he honestly had no idea why the pathways in his grace were scarred. " _May I glance at your mind? It won't hurt, but I think there's something wrong here."_ Michael felt Castiel's hesitant acceptance, and probed deeper, this time into Castiel's mind. He found what he was looking for almost instantly. She may have wiped his mind flawlessly time and time again, but that didn't mean that it didn't cause easily identifiable injuries if one knew what they were looking for.

Michael pushed his grace through the pathway's in Castiel's mind, healing the scarring and opening the pathways connected to heaven, such that Castiel wouldn't have to go back to replenish his grace. He recognized the grace that had worked to injure Castiel and though he was angry, he was not going to act rashly and accidentally injure what he was trying to fix.

" _Michael? What are you doing to my grace?"_

" _I am promoting you!" Michael declared. "As a seraph, you won't need to return to heaven to restore your grace."_

" _Gabriel."_

" _What?!"_

" _You're the Archangel of Judgement, are you not?!"_

" _Michael, what's the problem?"_

" _Naomi has been torturing our siblings to re-educate them, scarring their grace and wiping their memories!"_

"Michael?"

Michael jerked away from Castiel. His brother was not harmed by his grace, although he did look a little wary at being next to an irate archangel.

Sigyn had spoken. She was looking at Michael again, head tilted slightly. "What happened?"

"Heaven's gone insane," Michael said. "Naomi's torturing and brainwashing angels because she can."

"And you're just going to, what, smite her right now?" Sigyn raised an eyebrow.

Michael considered. "Doing so won't fix the angels she's hurt." He conceded grudgingly. Which was probably the point Sigyn was trying to make. "Those injured should be the first concern. But she also can't be allowed to hurt anyone else." Michael tried to remember if Naomi had a superior, but nothing came to his mind. He was sure Raphael would know, if he wasn't a fledgling again.

" _And what do you want me to do about Naomi?"_ Gabriel asked.

" _You're the Archangel of Judgement, are you not?"_ Michael retorted. " _She tortured and tried to brainwash Fenrir."_

" _Well, aren't you a manipulative one. After I'm done playing with Zachariah, she and I can have some one on one time. No one hurts my family."_

It didn't bother Michael that Gabriel was referring to his family that was an extension of Sigyn and not their family that was all the angels. They were still their siblings, and they'd all helped raising them, but the bond between the archangels was different than the bond between the angels or the bond between the archangels and the angels.

" _I'm not going to be able to heal all the angels in heaven by myself, Gabriel. But could you maybe try to find out who needs it the most?"_

Sigyn pulled a cookie sheet out of the oven. Michael didn't remember her putting it in, so she must have done it while he'd been healing Fenrir. "I'm going to take these up to those Winchester boys. See you later. Michael- "

"No smiting Naomi. _I know_ ," he said in a petulant voice.

Sigyn nodded, giving him a smile, and left.


	3. Chapter 3

Whew! Chapter 3 was ready to post! Please don't expect me to continue updating so quickly. For the next few chapters, they'll be posted as my betas finish proof-reading, but they're understandably busy with their real lives, so if they take their leisure, that's okay.

So's Michael. He's fun too. I like this chapter. I own nothing.

* * *

Sigyn took the platter of cookies to Heaven's Roadhouse. "Hello?" she said upon entering.

The roadhouse wasn't crowded. Sigyn remembered Mary and the Winchester boys. She did not know the man playing with a laptop or the woman drinking a beer on the other side of the table.

Dean stood. "Who are you?"

"Dean- "

"It's alright," Sigyn said. "I'm Sigyn. I hope it's alright that I brought cookies?"

"Are you trying to bribe us?!"

"Dean, stop," Sam cut in. "I'm sure they're just cookies. What could she possibly want from us that she would try cookies instead of being as creative as the angels? They already got you to say yes."

"And yet, it didn't do anything. What do you think the reason behind that was?"

"Michael would have no reason to lie about you not being his vessel. Not after you said yes. If he was going to take you, he would have." Sam looked away from his brother and turned towards Sigyn. "Did they really cancel the apocalypse?"

Sigyn nodded. "Raphael acted in the way he thought was best, and averted the apocalypse with much success." She considered it more than successful. Raphael had averted their apocalypse and returned the last of her children to her. His method could have been improved such that he had taken his own well being into consideration, but there was a reason she would be having words with Him if she ever found him. He was on Earth? He might be able to hide from his children, but he would be less capable of hiding from her.

"Is that why the angels have been discussing an explosion of archangelic grace?" The speaker was the man with the laptop, the person Sigyn didn't know.

"That's likely," Sigyn said. "I'm sorry, who are you?"

"Ash," he said. "And this is Pamela. I take it you know those three?" Ash nodded towards the three Winchesters.

"Of them, yes."

"I remember you," Mary said. "You're not a reaper?"

"What?!" Sigyn couldn't tell if Dean was more scared or angry.

"No, no. I'm not a reaper." Sigyn approached the table and put the platter of cookies on the table. Ash waved at her to take a seat. "I sometimes deliver souls."

"Was it because of Sam?" Mary asked.

"If you start singing about our souls like Michael was," Dean warned.

"But they're so beautiful." Sigyn may not have had a mischievous streak as big as Loki or Sleipnir, but that did not mean that she was incapable of having fun. And some people were just too easy to set off.

"It's just a fucking soul! And it's my soul! Why the hell does it matter whether or not it's showing its age from the time I was in hell?"

Sigyn had trouble keeping her wry smile from turning into a grin. She was not the only one amused by Dean's outburst.

"So if you're not a reaper," Sam started, "and you're not an angel, what does that make you? Pagan?"

The question did not offend Sigyn, as it might have offended someone else. It was honestly a good question, and she wanted the answer more than Sam could. "I can't remember," she said. "I was many beings before I was Sigyn, and I was many beings after I was Sigyn, though I decided not to use any other name when my children were born. Family complicates things. As far as Loki and I have been able to figure, we must have offended some primordial. Isn't that how it always goes? But we can't remember who it was."

"What if you could?" Pamela asked. "If there was an enochian spell for remembering something, would you use it?"

Sigyn liked the idea, but she didn't admit to it. It wasn't like she was going to do anything of that calibre without asking Loki if he thought it was a good idea. What if they decided remembering wasn't worth it? Either they had done something so incredibly terrible that their punishment of endless reincarnation and separation had been suitable and forcing themselves to remember it would mean they still hadn't learned the lesson they were supposed to learn, or some primordial had made the same mistake with them that He had made with Lucifer.

Sigyn wanted to have words with Him, but she wasn't sure what she would even say. What could she say? All four of his eldest, they were hers. Raphael may have been the only one not of Loki's blood, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to keep him anyway. She wasn't in the habit of sending anyone who needed a home away. There was a reason her wards included a sanctuary clause.

"That's not a decision I can make without talking to the people it would affect most," Sigyn said. "If it were still just Loki and me, I would probably be able to comfortably say yes. But I have children. I love them, and I finally have them back. Before Raphael stepped in, my children were ready to hide away with us and let the world end as it would if that's what it took for us to leave the reincarnation cycle. It didn't come to that, but it could have."

"You would have just let the world rot?!"

"You seem to forget that I am a mother before I am anything else. I like humans, but I am not your creator or your parent and I have no responsibility to you. I am merely pointing out that as much as I would like to know what I am, I will happily remain ignorant if it would put my children in danger."

"You should talk to them," Pamela said. She was smiling, but Sigyn didn't know her well enough to realize that it was a knowing smile. "Might I have one of those cookies?"

"Sure," Sigyn replied. "I made chocolate chip, and peanut butter oatmeal."

"When are we going home?" Dean asked. Not so much because he was ready to leave and more because he didn't want any surprises.

"I'm not sure. Michael may have gotten caught up in his desire to fix heaven, so it may take him longer than he said he would give you." After Pamela took a cookie, Sigyn took the platter of cookies over to the Winchesters and put it on their table. "Go on, have a cookie."

Dean and Mary took a chocolate chip cookie each. Sam was eyeing the peanut butter oatmeal cookie with an expression somewhere between longing and pain.

Mary jostled her younger son with an elbow. "Go on, eat the cookie."

Sam relented, and took a cookie. He took a small bite of the cookie, eyes widening as he discovered that it was not as sweet as he had been anticipating. "Thank you!"

"You're welcome." Sigyn looked around the room. "I need to go. The idea of using an enochian remembering spell has merit, and I have people to discuss it with."

* * *

When Sigyn returned home, her family was sitting around the counter eating dinner. Someone had conjured a high chair for Raphael, which was more adapted to his little body, and a booster for Lucifer, so he wasn't only eye level with the table.

"We didn't think you'd make it back for dinner," Hela said. "But there's one plate of food left, if you want it." Hela motioned to where she'd left the plate for Sigyn.

"Sounds good." Sigyn picked up the plate and sat in the empty chair next to Loki.

"How did it go?" Hela asked.

"It was pleasant. Someone suggested that we could use an enochian spell designed for remembrance to remember why this reincarnation cycle exists."

"Would that work?" Loki asked. He looked towards Michael, thinking the archangel might have some ideas about the spell.

Michael bit into his lip. He couldn't help but glance at Raphael because it had always been his little brother reading the enochian spell books. But Raphael was playing with the food on his plate, not paying attention to the conversation going on above his head. He sighed, because he did remember a spell, and knowing what he did, it was probably the spell they were looking for. "I remember an enochian spell that fits that description." He'd almost cast it, once.

Gabriel looked over at Michael. "What spell was it?"

"I found it in a book," Michael replied. "It was a spell for remembering things. The spell was specifically associated with reincarnation because apparently it's possible for reincarnating souls to remember their past lives under a specific set of circumstances. The alternative, of course, being the enochian ritual. I suspect that it would work for this purpose." He'd almost used it once, right before Lucifer fell. He'd been desperate to figure out why everything had felt so wrong, which had led to scouring the library for anything that might be of use. He'd found it scribbled on a piece of parchment, torn out of a book. Like someone else had also considered using the same ritual, but had in the end decided that it wasn't worth it. Considering the list of ingredients, Michael could see why, but that was not the reason he had abandoned the attempt.

Sigyn raised an eyebrow. "What ingredients does the spell use?"

"There's a few weird things on the list," Michael replied, "but no one would be injured in the making of the spell. I'll write it down after dinner."

After dinner, Michael wrote down everything he could remember about the memory spell. The spell as it had been written on the scrap of paper had been relatively simple, but he had not spent the last few eons idly and so expanded on everything that he could. When he was done writing, his sheet of paper looked something like this.

 _Enochian Memory Spell_

 _This spell is designed to restore forgotten memories and can be used to multiple purposes depending on the variation of ingredients used. The list of ingredients that follows is more a guideline to use, as different types of things can be used to different end. For a variation that can be used for remembering past reincarnations or ones' childhood, a variation representing youth with possible associations to those past lives would be best. Anchoring the spell to people on which it is to be performed is necessary and important as unpredictable things can occur with an unanchored spell._

 _The spell should be performed in a clay bowl. Add to the bowl each of the following._

 _One strand of hair to anchor the ritual (One hair from each person anchoring the spell.)_

 _One feather (The original recipe called for the feather of a fledgling, although it did not specifically refer to the feather from an angel fledgling. Do not use a feather from Michael or Lucifer. Recommendation: Eagle feather)_

 _One baby tooth (The intention behind this is that no one is knocking out anyone's permanent teeth. The best result is likely obtained if teeth are used to anchor the spell to the person remembering their past lives, but this is not required.)_

 _One piece of quartz_

 _Petals from four different kinds of flowers (Meaning is important)_

 _One leaf of Myrrh and one of heliotrope_

 _One scale from a snake_

 _Honey_

 _One cup of warm water (Should not be lukewarm, should not be boiling)_

 _At the bottom of the page, Michael wrote the words that went along with the spell._

When Michael was done detailing the spell on the paper, Hela was playing with Raphael and Lucifer outside and Sigyn and Loki were waiting in the living room. "I finished writing down the details of the spell." He handed the paper to Sigyn to look over.

Sigyn took the paper and read through it, holding it so that Loki could also read it. Perhaps it should have seemed odd that Enochian was the first language she and Loki had ever known, but they had never really discussed it. "Have you ever used this spell?" Some of the details seemed oddly specific for just research purposes.

"I gathered most of the ingredients, once," Michael admitted. "The ingredients were not why I changed my mind."

Loki put a finger over the line mentioning flower petals. "You don't have any notes about what kind of flowers we should use."

"Different kinds of flowers would have different effects, but flower lore was not my focus of study."

"I think Hela knows some things about flower lore," Sigyn suggested. "Perhaps we should start gathering ingredients in the morning?"

* * *

Michael returned the Winchesters to Earth. They had finally accepted that the apocalypse was well and truly over, so they were going to go back to normal, or at least more normal, monster hunts. (Dean still hated witches more than demons.)

The archangel recognized the sigils Castiel had used to hide the Winchesters. It was true that they hid them from all angels, even the archangels, and he was glad that they were there just in case Zachariah wasn't the only one to decided to try anything. He really needed to fix heaven and make it clear that the Winchesters were off limits.

Before he left, Michael mentioned that the Winchesters were legacies of the Men of Letters. They'd been known for their research on all things not human and he thought they might find some of it useful. "If you need anything, you can ask Castiel, Gabriel, or me," Michael insisted. They had so much to make up for, but this seemed like a good place to start. "Angels won't bother you anymore, I'll make sure of it, but we'll help if you want it. Cas values your friendship, but we're not tools. Hurt them, and you _will_ know my wrath."

The Winchesters agreed easily enough. They'd about had it with angels, but Cas was their friend. That was true. They didn't mind him visiting. Just as it was also good that Castiel had family that cared about him.

* * *

By morning, there was a clay bowl on the kitchen table. One hair from Sigyn and one from Loki had been added to it. On the table, there was also a broken piece of quartz, a basilisk scale, and a jar of organic honey.

"I didn't have any baby teeth in this universe and I don't have any from past universes," Sigyn said. "Some parents keep their children's baby teeth, but it didn't seem necessary to leave any universes with them."

"I know Petunia kept Dudley's. But I believe she burned mine. She may have worried I would do magic with them."

"I believe I know where my baby teeth are," Hela said, "if they would work."

"If we really can't get your teeth to anchor the spell, then Hela's would be a reasonable alternative," Michael replied. "If the spell is anchored properly to the correct people, it should be okay."

"What flowers would you recommend?" Loki asked Hela.

"Syringa is a good choice, as it represents memory. Honeysuckle has lore that suggests both a desire for health and a blessing of good luck. Cattail for peace and prosperity and Hawthorn for hope that you find what you're looking for. I can go get a fledgling eagle feather while I go fetch my teeth?" Hela suggested.

"We'll split the flower and herb list in half," Sigyn said.

Hela got back with the teeth first. It took Loki and Sigyn all morning to track down the six flowers and herbs that were left on the list.

Michael suggested they do the spell outside, which was reasonable, so Gabriel set up a table outside with all the component on it.

"Is there a recommended way of doing this?" Loki asked.

Michael shrugged. "One of you could add the ingredients while the other does the chanting?" He considered. "When I almost did it, I was going to chant while adding the ingredients, but it's important that the spell affects both of you. The chanting can start while the ingredients are being added or at the end, I don't believe it matters."

Loki started adding the ingredients to the clay bowl while Sigyn prepared to begin chanting. While they were doing this, everyone was outside. Michael and Gabriel were standing near by, watching in case something went wrong and their interference was necessary.

Loki's triplets, Hela, Jor, and Fenrir, were playing with Raphael and Lucifer. They were playing tag, and Raphael was it. Being all of almost three feet tall, there was no way he would ever be able to catch any of them if they were really playing, but the adults were moving slow on purpose.

As Loki was adding the water to the bowl, Raphael caught up to Hela. Unable to resist, the woman bent to pick the fledgling up off the ground, tickling him. Raphael squealed, giggling as he scratched and wiggled, trying to escape.

The giggling attracted the attention of Gabriel and Michael. There was no sound quite like those made by happy fledglings, and it had been eons since they had heard it. The two archangels did not see the liquid in the clay bowl changing color.

Sigyn had reached the last part of the Enochian chant as the last of the water landed in the clay bowl. " **Memory."**

The fledglings could be heard laughing in the background as she spoke. **"Recall."**

The water in the bowl stilled. **"Remember!** "

The world inside Sigyn's wards paused.

Raphael, Michael, and Lucifer were alone.

* * *

Please don't kill me over the cliff-hanger. This is not the last chapter of this story and the next chapter will also not the last one. I'd love to know what you've liked the most about this story so far, as well as what you'd like to see more of. Do we need more baby Raphael? Should there be more Winchesters? My muse loves fresh ideas and for some reason, she likes pleasing the readers. Ask, and you might receive.


	4. Chapter 4

I have to thank Thallen and Nathy for their diligent proof-reading. I'm also going to thank Hyrule for her thoughts on what could happen here, and the rest of the discord family for their motivation and ideas.

This is AU after Changing Channels. When I first learned about Balthazar, I had assumed that he'd been gone longer than just somewhere between season 4-6, and that's reflected in Trickster's Haven and here.

In this chapter, Bold is Enochian. Also, the mistreatment of children is a little more prominent in the first half of this chapter than it has been for other chapters. And there are mentions of torture (not of children). Naomi.

* * *

 _In the beginning that was the beginning, there was Light and there was Dark. They coexisted. There were no attempts by one at killing the other, and one did not create children with the sole purpose of locking the other away. They were codependent, and They were both capable of destruction and creation. And They were jealous beings. Dark created little monsters that wanted her time, and Light created something to send them away. Whatever it was, it was throwaway. Only lasting long enough to destroy Her little monsters. Dark was displeased, but did not offer retaliation because if He had done it first, She would have destroyed them as well._

 _But that did not stop Dark from creating two children in Their image. With the unhealthy codependent relationship between the Dark and the Light, she wanted to spur something new between Them._

 _Thing 1 and Thing 2 were created as two unrelated adults. Perhaps Dark wanted dolls in the image of Them. What she instead created was the first pair of soulmates. Thing 1 and Thing 2 were sentient and emotional beings. They did not have names, because Dark did not care about them. She cared about what She could use them for. That they serve their purpose._

 _If they had not been adults, the Things would have required alone time with Dark. Sentient children need time and affection and learning. The Things did not though, because they were created fully realized. Their understanding and comprehension was beyond what Dark had anticipated or desired them to have. But perhaps a third deity interfered because he was tired of his realm being littered with broken toys that had been considered worthless from the beginning._

 _Dark may not have been involved in the lives of Thing 1 and Thing 2, but Light was still jealous. Jealous that Dark would create these interesting autonomous toys that were capable of exercising this free will Dark hadn't intended to give them. And so Light tried to copy Thing 1 and Thing 2. He made Things 3-6. Though He tried, they were not as adult like as Things 1 and 2. These four sentient beings made of energy did not have minds as well developed as the first two and while they did have free will, they had not been taught to exercise it. They wanted, demanded, time with Light, which neither Dark nor Light wanted to deal with._

 _So Light and Dark contemplated, and then, they came to an agreement. This would be fun, they agreed, all smirks and wry smiles. These sentient beings were a mistake, but it could still be fixed._

 _So Dark called Her Things and Light called His. "My counterpart has created something which I can not suffer. Go wipe them out."_

 _Thing 1 and Thing 2 were willing to investigate, but their loyalty to Dark was not blind. They knew what had happened to everything that had come before and they knew what the pattern was. Things 3-6 did not have the same knowledge. They willing followed the directions that Light gave them, no thought to their own safety or anticipation for what may follow. If Light told them to jump, they would have asked how high, because they didn't realize that their free will could have purpose._

 _Things 1 and 2 found 3-6 without revealing themselves. Thing 1 had been molded with some idea of stealth in mind, and Thing 2 molded to protect her. Things 3-6 were small, each progressively smaller than the last. They had blades, but they hadn't even been taught how to wield them properly, and the blades were not designed with their size in mind._

 _"What do we do?" Thing 2 whispered quietly to Thing 1._

 _"Oh no," Thing 1 whispered in response, almost in shock. "They want us all dead." She frowned. "I'll have no part of this." She put away her blade. Keeping her hands in front of her and visible, she stepped into view. "Hello."_

 _Thing 3 raised his sword higher, pointing it in her direction. He took a single step forward, attempting to block Thing 1's view of Things 4-6 . Thing 6 cowered behind Thing 4 and Thing 5 shook, holding back tears._

 _"Who are you?" Thing 1 asked. She kept her tone level, hoping that they wouldn't attack her before they could ask questions. These weren't warriors. These were terrified children trying to please someone who only meant them harm._

 _"How do you mean?" Thing 5 sniffled. The Light hadn't seen fit to name them. Didn't have time for them at all. But he'd created them, so when he told them to come here, they had._

 _Thing 1 glanced at Thing 2. She wasn't trying to give the latter's position away, but she was angry. Dark hadn't seen fit to name them either, but she'd thought she could expect better from the other being. Apparently that was not the case. "What do you want to be called?" Thing 1 asked, considering that might be a reasonable question._

 _"Why call us anything?" Thing 4 asked. "We're all here to fight, aren't we?"_

 _"I'd like to think we don't need to fight," Thing 1 replied. "I wasn't given a name either, but I picked one for myself."_

 _Thing 6 glanced out from behind Thing 4. "What did you pick?"_

 _"I'm Mirim," she said. "And that's Muriah." She pointed at Thing 2. "Who do you want to be?"_

 _Thing 6 spent a whole minute pondering, but he shook his head. "I don't know."_

 _"That's okay," Mirim replied. "Won't you put your swords away? We're not going to hurt you."_

 _"But Light said-" Thing 3 shuffled his feet, but didn't put down his sword._

 _"Why do you think Light said what He said?" Mirim asked._

 _"Why does it matter?" Thing 4 asked. "He said we had to find Dark's creations and kill them. Isn't that you?"_

 _"But that's wrong," Thing 5 whimpered. Tears slid down his face. "I don't wanna hurt anybody."_

 _Thing 3 lowered the sword slightly and he looked over his shoulder. "Hey, hey. It's okay."_

 _Mirim moved towards Things 3-6. "You don't need to hurt us. Muriah and I really don't want to hurt you, okay?"_

 _Thing 3 looked back at Mirim. "But what if He finds out? He'll be angry with us."_

 _Mirim gave him a gentle smile. "Come with us. Come with us and They need never find out. Promise."_

 _They agreed, still reluctant, but they followed Mirim and Muriah to the border between the Light and Dark domains. They followed the middle border until Mirim stopped. "Here's good," she said, though the four children of Light could not see any difference between this spot and anywhere else along the border._

 _Muriah merely nodded to Mirim. Together, they started drawing Enochian sigils in the air. With each sigil added, lines formed. First a square, then a triangle, until a triangular prism of foundation and fabric had taken form in front of them. It had a rectangular door, and if not for the support, it would have looked more like a tent._

 _Mirim and Muriah circled the structure, continuing to add protective sigils to the border as they did so. These additional sigils did nothing to add to the structure of the would be house. Instead, it merely furthered to tie themselves to it._

 _"Do you know this language?" Mirim asked the children._

 _Thing 5 nodded. "We all do," he said._

 _"Do you have a favorite sigil?" Muriah asked. He waited, letting them decide for themselves whether they had one and if so, what it was. When all four had nodded, he continued. "I'm sure you four know yourselves better than we do. But you should add some part of yourself to the wards. Make them recognize you."_

 _Each of the children added themselves to the wards. Thing 3, with a mild love of pointy objects and a fierce devotion to his smaller siblings. Thing 4, who loved bright lights and playing games. Thing 5, who wanted nothing more than to curl up with a good book and heal broken things. And Thing 6, who just wanted this moment with those he now considered family, to last forever._

 _Thing 7 and Thing 8 came into their lives like a dream come true. Mirim and Muriah had never thought they could conceive children, so when Samael and Daniel were born, they were the joy of their family. The kids were so excited that they usually slept with one of the twins in their little arms. Thing 3 and 4 tended to stay with Daniel, kissing his cheeks and nose so often that the baby was covered with freckles. Thing 5 and 6 sat with baby Samael to tell him about animals and the stars, and sometimes Thing 6 kissed his feet or chubby arms, also creating freckles._

 _Things 3-6 never felt like Mirim and Muriah loved them any less with the addition of Samael and Daniel. Despite Light and Dark's intentions and desires, or perhaps because of them, there was no way that the two adults were going to do anything that could harm their children. Their children. Not just Daniel and Samael, but all six of them. It wasn't a family of two, or four, or six. It was a family of eight._

 _The tent that Mirim and Muriah built in the beginning grew into a little house. It became what they needed it to be. The six kids needed space they could share and space that was their own. Each bedroom was decorated as they wanted it with help from their parents when their spells to color and shape wouldn't do as they wanted._

 _There were no tears. There was only endless love and patience. Their lives didn't extend outside the house, outside the security of the wards that protected them from Light and Dark, but it didn't need to. They could create whatever they wanted inside the house and with Dark and Light preventing the other from even creating a world, there was no world outside their home._

 _Under no circumstances would it ever last forever. Light and Dark may have forgotten about Their things for a long time, but not forever. The wards kept the things out of the way of Dark an Light, which was what They really wanted when they came up with the scheme to have them destroy each other. But eventually, they remembered that they had set their toys loose and went to see what had happened to them. They couldn't find them, or any evidence that they had ever gone after each other, and it displeased them._

 _They found them eventually. They found Mirim and Muriah raising the four children of Light and two of their own children. It didn't matter that Things 1-6 had never bother Dark and Light, their very existence infuriated the deities. It was almost worse that Thing 1 and Thing 2 had reproduced, on top of raising Light's creations. Dark's creations had done for Light's creations as Light and Dark should have done for Their own children and on top of that, were doing it for the children they had created. It rubbed it in the faces of the deities that their toys thought themselves better than their creators and they would not tolerate it._

 _Dark and Light required retribution for sins they only perceived to exist. They were codependent, and coexisting, and on the rare occasions they were capable of working together, deadly. They stood next to each other in front of the wards and started spelling out their own Enochian sigils. Their intention was not to remove all of the wards, but instead to blast a hole large enough for them to get through._

 _It was time for sleep when They came for Their children. Mirim and Muriah were wrapped around their six sleeping children when they were awoken by the wards they had placed with only love and protection in their intentions. The two adults had always wondered when this day would come, had thought about what they would do if this day ever came._

 _Muriah woke each child calmly, reminding each one as they awoke that they were loved. That they would be safe. That nothing would happen to them, but they had to get up now so they could go somewhere safer than this room. He waved his hand in the air, drawing a complicated sigil and adding to it with each wave of his hand. The sigil created a white light in the center of the room._

 _"I'll hold them off for as long as I can," Mirim stated. She left the room and went to the keystone of wards inside the house. The sigils she drew in the air were designed to reinforce and strengthen the wards around the house. "_ ** _Fortify._ **_"_

 _Muriah added lines to his own sigil. With each additional rune, the circle of light increased in size. "_ ** _Provide."_**

 _"What are you doing?" Thing 5 asked._

 _"_ ** _Protect."_** _Mirim whispered each sigil in Enochian as she added it to the spell she was casting. "_ ** _Defend."_**

 _"Get out here you cowards!"_

 _"You don't control us!"_

 _The light from Muriah's spell grew to encompass the whole house and each additional sigil added now caused it to fade, seeming to disappear into the center of the circle._

 _"You won't escape punishment!" Dark cried. "You had orders!"_

 _"And what are you going to do about it?" Muriah asked. "Maybe if you'd taken better care of your toys, they'd still be loyal to you."_

 _The fledglings disappeared through the portal and the building was continuing to fade and shrink through the light, putting Mirim on the outside of it. She was still drawing sigils, but the damaged wards were fading faster than she could reinforce them._

 _Dark and Light tore a hole in the wards big enough for them to squeeze through when the light from Muriah's spell started fading._

 _The deities moved, drawing new sigils and chanting the alternating words of a new spell. "_ ** _Banishment." "Death." "Reincarnation." "Annihilation." "Infertility."_** _"You will suffer separation from your loved ones, with no knowledge of why your cursed existence will continue. You will face temporary relief, but only to remind you how much you hate the continued separation. This is your punishment for disobedience." The light was almost gone, "_ ** _Forget."_** _Muriah's spellwork finished as the last command was spoken, and every trace that they had ever existed disappeared with it._

* * *

Michael had no idea how the spell could have gone wrong. He wasn't even sure that it had gone wrong as the book had never said specifically how it worked or even what it did, beyond helping people remember things long forgotten. That did not explain why his siblings had all disappeared, with the exception of himself and the two fledglings. _You told them not to use any part of you or Lucifer_ his mind told him. _You did not tell them to use nothing of themselves._ Jor's snakeskin, Hela's tooth, a piece of the quartz that meant everything to Gabriel, and a jar of honey. _Who knew Fen's love of bees was so part of him._

That did not explain to Michael what he was supposed to do now. He knew his siblings and parents were still alive, but he could not feel them. He could not feel Gabriel's grace, nor Castiel's, even as he had only yesterday healed and promoted the seraph. They weren't dead, not much could kill a seraph and even less an archangel. _He would know if they were dead_. But they weren't _here_.

Time travel was unlikely and improbable. The things that Sigyn and Loki had wanted to know, that was from some universe that no longer existed, and it hadn't been here. Angels and archangels could find alternate universes along various timelines, but they were hardly using that method with this ritual. But wherever they were, were they in danger? Could they get back without help?

Even assuming they could, what if they needed help? He had no idea where they were and he couldn't feel any of them. That didn't really narrow anything down. If he wanted to find anything out, he'd need to check Heaven's archives for the original spell. But he couldn't take the fledglings. Not before Heaven was fixed and he couldn't just leave Raphael and Lucifer alone. They weren't human children, but even immortal children could get into trouble.

His head was whirring for any possible solution, and slowly ground to a stop on one, possibly a stretch, of an idea. Could the Winchesters be trusted? They acted ostensibly, but how high maintenance could they possibly be? They'd faced dangers worse than a few of things that could pose a threat to archangel children, and even in their younger states Lucifer or Raphael were anything but defenseless.

There was a weird ringing coming from a device on the table that Michael only kind of recognized as Fenrir's. A few seconds later it stopped ringing and a voice he recognized as Dean Winchester came on. "Hey Cas, hope everything's alright. We're planning on taking a vacation after this weird hunt and you're welcome to come with us if you'd like. We're not quite sure what's going on with it, these people have been dying from what seem to be Biblical plagues, blood, boils, and locust? Anyway, if you'd like to join us, we're in Easter, PA."

Michael listened as Dean proceeded to rattle off the details of their location, then picked up the phone. It sounded like the staff of Moses to him, which was an artifact from Heaven that had gone missing awhile back, along with a bunch of other weapons. He looked over to where Lucifer and Raphael were playing. "Will you two be okay by yourselves for a few hours?"

"Sure!" Lucifer exclaimed, Raphael nodding his head in agreement.

Michael flew to the given address.

"Whoa!" Dean shouted. "Where's Cas?"

"I am unsure. A spell went awry earlier and I am unsure where he and Gabriel and most of our family ended up." Michael held up Cas' phone. "I do not know how this works or I would have answered, but I heard your message. I believe the deaths were caused using the Staff of Moses. It's an artefact that went missing awhile back."

The Winchesters told Michael what they had learned so far, and he flew them to the father of the deceased child. Michael didn't have much choice but to knock out the man and the kid wielding the broken staff, but he was able to tell even without touching him that there was something up with the kid's soul. He touched it, gently, causing no harm to the child. "Huh," he said. "He bought the staff from an angel with his soul."

"... Like a demon deal?"

"Something like that. Let's see who it was." Michael stroked the soul, still being careful not to damage it. "Balthazar."

"Can you dissolve the contract?" Sam asked.

"Sure." Michael cleansing the contract with the soul with a wave of his hand. "I can go talk to Balthazar and make sure he doesn't do this again if you would prefer."

Dean looked like he was considering arguing but Sam elbowed him. "We came here following a lead on the Bunker you mentioned yesterday, got a key for it. Thank you for giving us that information."

"Can you tell me how this device is operated before I go?" Michael asked, referring to Cas' phone. "In case you want to contact me before I find my family."

The Winchesters gave Michael a crash course on how the phone worked and then left for the bunker, which they told Michael the location of. Michael tracked Balthazar down and flew to his home.

Michael found Balthazar inside the house, reveling in decadence. He raised an eyebrow at the angel that had been Castiel's best friend once. "Balthazar."

Balthazar might not have feared any other angels, but Michael wasn't just another angel. He swallowed thickly, but maintained eye contact with the archangel. "Michael."

"Will you at least tell me why?" Michael asked.

The angel shrugged. "If the world was going to end, I wasn't going to just sit around and wait for it or for civil war to break out. Father said to observe his creations, so I am."

"I will fix heaven and there will be no civil war," Michael promised. "Balthazar… Will you return the weapons to heaven?"

Balthazar scowled like a petulant child, but didn't answer right away. While Michael waited for Balthazar to respond, he glanced at the angel's grace. His own grace ached in sympathy.

How could it come to this? _Father, why would You let this happen?_ It had been one thing to think He was dead. That He had died, and so they, His first children, had to try to figure out how to carry on. _And everyone chose to follow the path to Armageddon and Paradise over thinking for themselves because following orders was ingrained in their grace._ And this, _this,_ was what happened to angels who tried anything else. _Even if doing so wasn't their intention._

"Michael? Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Will you let me heal your grace?" Michael asked. "Please?"

Balthazar shrugged, although Michael sensed something akin to both surprise and discomfort in his posture. "Sure, why not. But why do you care? Naomi said she was doing it on the orders of the archangels." A defensive note had crept into his voice.

Michael was seething. But not at his brother, and he had promised Sigyn not to smite Naomi even as his grace was humming with his anger. Gabriel might have been the Messenger and the Archangel of Justice, but the latter was to some extent shared with Michael.

"No," Michael refuted gently, trying to keep the anger he felt from seeping into his words, "Actions made on her part were not made under any order of mine."

There would be justice, but not yet.


	5. Chapter 5

I could not have written this chapter or any chapter after this one, if LilithPrime had not mentioned Ephraim. I'm only current up to season 6, but I needed a Healer. He's probably a bit (a lot) OC, but he's my favorite character after Michael and Sigyn. I wanted to tell you that when I wrote this chapter, I thought it was my favorite. But then I wrote every chapter after it and liked them each a little bit more. I'd also like to thank my betas, Thallen and Nathy. As well as the Discord Darlings. Their ideas are always really helpful.

I don't know how many chapters this story will be. I've written up to chapter 9 and this story just reached 80 pages. I don't know how long it's going to be, but there will definitely be more stories when this one is complete. I love this universe.

-Possible tissue warning and this is your warning that Odin was a bad parent/grandparent and the next few chapters deal with the consequences of his actions. There's also some vague mentions of Naomi and what she did to angels.

* * *

Sigyn woke up to someone jumping on the bed. "Wake up! Wake up! We can't be late for the gala!"

Sigyn couldn't remember where she was. She'd had this strange dream about being an archangel - _What's an archangel?_ \- named Mirim, but it had felt so real.

She must not have opened her eyes fast enough because the voice continued shouting, this time near her head. "Sigyn! Wake up!" The person jumping on the bed had a high pitched voice, and Sigyn tried to remember if this was her little sister.

"I'm awake," Sigyn mumbled, opening her eyes and blinking at the harsh light of the morning. The face of the little girl near her head caused the memories to come back to her.

* * *

Michael slowly healed Balthazar's grace. He wasn't a Healer like Raphael, but that didn't mean that he couldn't fix this. He was going to have to find a Healer though, if he kept finding angels in this state. The scars were less severe than Fenrir's had been, though they were more numerous. "Did Naomi do all this?" Michael asked as he healed a particularly deep scar in one of Balthazar's wings.

Balthazar flinched as Michael's fingers caught on a feather growing back incorrectly in the wound he was healing. "I… I can't remember." Having Michael poking at his grace made him uncomfortable. Healing was one of the most intimate things one angel could do to another and it made him vulnerable. If Michael changed his mind, it would be so easy for him to smite Balthazar.

" _I'm not going to hurt you."_ Michael whispered the Enochian into Balthazar's grace. _"I want no more deaths among my brothers and sisters."_

"Wouldn't the Paradise brought by finishing Armageddon reach that goal?" Balthazar didn't want the Apocalypse, but he also didn't understand what Michael intended.

 _"How do we even know that Paradise would come from Armageddon? It's not a feasible route now, though, so it doesn't matter. I will not kill my twin."_

It wasn't intentional, but through Michael's grace, Balthazar could see impressions of a house and two fledglings wrapped in a love he almost couldn't understand. _"You mustn't tell anyone though,"_ Michael said regarding the images. _"Not until I fix heaven."_

Michael finished healing the last scar on Balthazar's grace. "If you don't want to go back to heaven, what is it that do you want, Little Brother?"

Balthazar didn't have the opportunity to answer Michael's question because the room lit up with flash of white light. "Ephraim?"

* * *

Nightly for the next month, Sigyn continued dreaming about Mirim and Muriah. She wasn't sure why, but there seemed to be some deja vu associated with the memories of the dreams upon waking. Every day that month, she ran into Loki while running errands around the castle. Sometimes when she had time, Loki showed her new things in the city. Other times they merely chatted.

On the eve of her second month in the capitol, Sigyn had a new dream. She did not dream of Murim, Muriah, and the six children this time. She dreamed of angels and archangels. She dreamed of someone close to her heart named Gabriel. There was something about him. She was sure he had a second name that she was certain she should know. She was also sure that she'd heard it in the dream, but upon waking, she could not repeat it.

Sigyn didn't have any errands to run that day, and ran into Loki early on her way to get something to eat.

"Hello again, Sigyn!" Loki grinned easily. "Any plans for today?"

Sigyn shook her head. "I was just going to get something to eat. There're no errands to run today."

Loki nodded. "Did you have something in mind for breakfast? I haven't eaten either. But, uh..." Loki swallowed. "There's someone I'd really like you to meet after breakfast, if that's okay?"

"Sounds good!" Sigyn considered. "I was just going to go to the bakery, unless you want something different?"

Loki didn't disagree, so they headed to the bakery and got pastries. They ate their pastries while they walked, though Sigyn had no idea where Loki was taking her.

Loki was silent. While that was not unknown for him, Sigyn was sure it was because he was terrified. But what did he have to be afraid of? Was he afraid of whoever it was that he was going to introduce her to? Or was he afraid of how she would react?

Loki stopped at the entrance to the stables. "Did you know I'm a mage?" he asked quietly.

Sigyn shrugged. "Not really? I mean, I've heard rumors and things, but I didn't think it mattered. Either you are one, or you aren't. Either way, it doesn't change who you've been to me."

Loki stared. "Really?" he whispered. "People have been telling me since I was little that it was wrong for me to use the Seidr because it's women's role."

Sigyn shrugged. "I can use it a little tiny bit, but I always thought it best to respect anyone who can use it well. I bet people you've used it against learned not to underestimate you."

"Maybe a little." Loki tried to smile at her, but was unsuccessful. "I can shapeshift too," he added. Sigyn could sense his growing apprehension, but he seemed to steel himself and motioned her forward, opening the stable door. Sigyn followed him inside. "Sigyn…. I'm a mother."

Loki led Sigyn to the biggest stall in the back. Waiting for them was a horse, but it was not a horse like Sigyn had ever seen before. This horse, instead of having the normal number of legs, had eight of them. He was also wearing a gilded halter. Sigyn winced. You weren't supposed to leave tack on a horse all the time. That was unsafe for them.

"Sigyn, this is Sleipnir. This is my firstborn." Loki hesitated, watching Sigyn as though trying to determine what she would do next. "Sleipnir, this is Sigyn."

Sigyn leaned over the stall door, reaching towards Sleipnir slowly. This was wrong, this was so wrong. Who in their right mind would treat someone's child as though they were a beast of burden? Sigyn may not know a lot about heritage, but she was fairly certain that no child of Loki could ever be merely an animal. Besides, this was the child of an heir to the throne of Asgard. By whose order had this been done?

"May I touch you?" she whispered softly towards him. "Would that be okay?" Sigyn suspected Sleipnir to have an intelligence underestimated by everyone except Loki. Looks could be incredibly deceiving. Shapeshifters just took that to the next level.

Sleipnir must have understood her though, because he moved his head to sniff her hand and then rubbed his face against it. "Hello, Sleipnir," Sigyn said. "I'm Sigyn."

Without moving his head away from her touch, Sleipnir turned his head to look towards Loki. He whinnied. That sound was followed by Loki coughing. Sigyn couldn't help it, she had to look over her shoulder at Loki. He was blushing. The expression on his face was pure mortification.

"Slip likes it when you scratch him right behind the ears," Loki mumbled.

"Slip!" Sigyn exclaimed. "Sleipnir. Gabriel?" she mumbled, glancing at the wall. The dreams she'd had the last month were still fading from her mind, but she'd known the Gabriel in her dream had a second name. But he hadn't been the only person in her dream. "Hela, Jormungandr, Fenrir," Sigyn whispered. Loki choked, drawing her attention back to him. "Loki. Muriah."

Loki tilted his head to look at her. "Mirim."

Sleipnir whinnied again. He hadn't drawn away from Sigyn and her hand brushed against the edge of the halter. It burned with Seidr. Brushing against it was enough to see the chaffing, chapped skin and rubbed off coat of Sleipnir's face. She remembered this, now. Odin's belief that Loki's children were the beasts they'd looked like, even as they'd shapeshifted to appear as Aesir children when they were safe and happy.

This halter was unacceptable, as was the scarring it would cause to her son if left alone. Sigyn ran a finger gently over the halter, the cheek piece this time. **_"Leather, bend,"_** she mumbled in Enochian. She may not have had the same control over Seidr as Loki, or Odin, but she _remembered_ something else. She ran her finger over the crown piece. _"_ ** _Leather, stretch._ **" She wasn't sure this spell would work, but she had to try it. Running her fingers lastly over the nosepiece, she whispered, _"_ ** _Leather, break_ ****."**

The buckles containing the cornerstones of the runic spell shattered harmlessly onto the ground, the halter sliding from Sleipnir's face at the release of the magic holding it in place. Loki jumped over the stall door as Sleipnir's form shifted like a veiled mirage. Sigyn could not jump the door, nor could she open it enough to slide through without hitting them with it, so she could only watch helplessly as the eight legged horse shifted into the form of a two legged boy, spitting image of Loki that he was, who would have fallen if Loki hadn't been there to catch him.

As far as Sigyn could tell, Slip's injuries were minor. He'd been an eight legged horse for long enough that slipping back into a two legged form had to make it rough to try and balance, which explained why he had nearly fallen over. There was still chaffing on his face from the halter, but no scarring.

"Mama!" Sleipnir grasped at Loki, seeking a closeness he hadn't experienced since Odin had torn him away from Loki.

Loki wrapped his arms around Sleipnir. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," the child whispered. He looked away from Loki towards Sigyn. "Sigyn!"

Sigyn was still leaning over the stall door, but she rested her elbows on it to relax her stance. "Hey, Sleipnir."

"Was the spell supposed to do this?" Sleipnir asked. "I thought you were supposed to just remember, not end up here."

"I don't know what happened, Gabriel," Sigyn sighed. "I've been dreaming about the first universe."

"I don't think we're really here," Loki said. "We didn't time travel and we didn't travel to another universe."

"We're not in our heads, either," Sigyn replied. "Or we would know."

"Are our bodies still in our front yard? Or did they disappear?"

"The last thing I remember was a sensation not different from a port key," Loki considered. "We were somewhere first."

"If I'm here," Gabriel said, "Does that mean Fen, Jor, and Hela are also here? Fen's jar of honey, Jor's scales, Hela's teeth, and my piece of quartz."

"With nothing of Michael and Lucifer, because Michael was afraid they would remember their deaths as Nari and Vali." Sigyn frowned. "Are the triplets where Odin put them?"

Loki shivered. His grip on Sleipnir's arm tightened, but not painfully so. "Yes," he whispered.

"If we're not really here, which we know we're not because we've affected whatever _here_ is, then we should go get them, right? And since Vali and Nari haven't been born yet in this memory, that's how we know they're not here?" Gabriel asked.

"If we don't go back to the moment that we left, and if we actually did disappear, then Michael will probably try to find us. But it'll be easier to be found and easier for us to leave if we're all together."

Loki stood up, still holding onto Sleipnir. "Slip, are you okay to walk the world tree?"

* * *

"Ephraim?" Balthazar's tone was wary. "Why are you here?"

The Rit Zien frowned. His eyes were narrowed, blinking as if against the harshness of a light, though the room was dark. "So much pain." He wasn't quite whimpering, but was almost begging. He wasn't holding an angel blade, but Michael knew that the Healers during the first war had mercy-smote their patients who were in too much pain and couldn't be healed. They weren't supposed to continue doing so, or at least, Michael didn't think they had.

"Ephraim, I healed Balthazar," Michael said.

"So much pain," the Healer repeated. He looked at Michael. "You're in so much pain."

Michael knew his grace was fine, but he remembered that because of his and Raphael's stoicism and quiet mourning following Lucifer's fall, all the angels and seraphs had been encouraged towards having no emotion. Was that part of Naomi's reeducation scheme? He had no pain in his grace, but had Ephraim forgotten the difference between physical pain and emotional pain? "Ephraim, I'm not injured." Michael was not convinced that Ephraim was aware that he was speaking to Michael himself.

"Pain is pain," he mumbled, "and there is so much of it." Ephraim stumbled a few steps in Michael's direction. He was squinting at Michael, like looking at the archangel was physically painful.

Michael backed a few steps away from Balthazar, warning the younger angel not to move. He was sure that Ephraim's presence had little to do with Balthazar and everything to do with what he was perceiving, or thought he was perceiving from Michael, but he also posed no threat to Michael. The archangel was in the mood to get answers without injuring anyone. " **Ephraim.** " Michael uttered the angel's name with his true voice, though he was not shouting. His intention was to get the angel to focus on something besides whatever he thought he was seeing.

The angel stilled. He blinked, eyes widening to take in more than just the pain and realized that he was staring at the archangel Michael. Ephraim flinched. He had almost tried to mercy-smite an archangel. He cowered and looked away, curling in on himself as he realized he was going to be in so much trouble.

Michael could tell by Ephraim's change in posture that he realized who he was talking to and that the younger angel wouldn't try to smite him. Michael would have been fine, but just because he could take it didn't mean he wanted to. It would not have hurt him severely, or even caused him pain, as the Rit Zien killed painlessly, but it still would have been more of a hassle than he wanted to deal with at the moment. And a mess. Michael closed the distance between himself and the confused Healer. "Ephraim, are you here because of me?"

Ephraim swallowed. "I thought so," he muttered. "Naomi told me to follow it, but it's been there a few days."

Michael raised an eyebrow. "Naomi sent you here?"

"Yes? No? I…" Ephraim shivered. His eyes went back to the floor and his wings folded, making himself look smaller. " **I can't remember** **_._ **"

Michael looked at the Healer's grace. Angel grace was not all identical. The soldier angels had grace designed for fighting. Seraphim who were soldiers had similar grace, though theirs was more powerful and did not require being in heaven to recharge. Healers, Gardeners, they were all different. Michael was concerned by what he found in Ephraim's grace. There was scarring like Balthazar's and damage like Castiel's. The location of the scars in Ephraim's grace didn't cut him off from heaven though. He was a Healer, which used empathy to find their siblings who were in pain. When injured grace was in pain, it called out for Healing, which was heard by the Rit Zien. Michael wasn't well versed in angel biology, but he did understand that the damage to Ephraim's grace targeted his receptors for pain. Not all of them were damaged, but it was not unlikely that he was only receiving it from specific sources, and with his grace raw around the scars, the pain he heard was amplified. _Which explained the emotional pain, to some extent._ _"Did Naomi hurt you, Ephraim?"_ Michael was sure that she had, but he couldn't understand why she would feel it necessary to systematically torture their siblings. _Father, why did You allow this?_ He was beyond angry, but Michael kept his grace quiet because Ephraim didn't deserve that from him.

 **"I can't remember,"** Ephraim repeated, still in Enochian.

"May I heal you?" Michael asked. "Someone hurt you."

Ephraim tilted his head enough to call it a nod. He still wasn't looking Michael in the eyes and his grace radiated fear. He'd messed up. He'd _threatened_ an archangel. Why was Michael being so nice? _Naomi would have_ \- He was sure whatever sentence he'd subconsciously tried to think was true, but he couldn't remember where it was going. He could still feel pain coming from the Archangel. It wasn't a physical pain, but as Michael was observing him it had increased. Ephraim wanted to curl further into himself. **_He_** _had caused some of this pain. He'd caused it and the Rit Zien's First Rule was to do no harm._

"I'm not upset because of you," Michael said. "I am upset that someone would hurt any of my siblings and I'm upset that Father would allow it. I am not going to hurt you, Ephraim, but if it's alright I would like to repair your grace."

"Oh-kay," the Healer stammered. He was still scared, but he would let Michael do it. The archangel didn't seem to mean him any harm, and even if he did, Ephraim could hardly oppose the will of an Archangel. If something bad happened, then _he deserved it._

Michael traced his grace through Ephraim's slowly. Healers were more sensitive to grace, so healing them could be difficult. It would be better if Healers healed Healers, but that wasn't an option at the moment, so Michael would have to make do with what his own abilities could do to soothe the fractured mind of the younger angel.

Ephraim's mind was as fractured as his grace was damaged, possibly more so. Michael didn't want to invade the Healer's mind, but he could tell it was Naomi who had riffled through it and wiped it with some regularity. Some portion of Castiel's memories would be recovered, but there wasn't much Michael could do for the Healer to recover his memories.

The archangel healed the scars, all of them, and did what he could for Ephraim's mind. The Healer's grace would be raw in places until it had soothed itself, but the damage wouldn't be lasting. Michael wasn't sure exactly what Naomi had caused Ephraim to do or reveal to her, but he wiped every lasting connection between them away. At the very least, Ephraim would not be controlled by her.

Balthazar summoned chairs for the archangel and the healer to sink into. "Are you done?" he asked with a slight note of petulance. "It'd probably be a good idea to get out of here and not attract any more unwanted attention."

"Sound assumption," Michael agreed. "Ephraim, are you alright?"

Ephraim raised his head, blinking as he made eye contact with Michael. "My grace feels… good." He picked the adjective slowly, trying to decide which one fit best. "Better than it has in a long time. Do you know… what happened?"

"Do you remember Naomi?" Michael asked quietly.

"Not really." Ephraim bent his neck, not quite shaking his head in a yes or no fashion. "I can tell you that I was in a room with her before I came here, but that's all I remember. If you weren't certain she'd done this, I'd be inclined to tell you I've never met her because as far as I can remember, I haven't. But I know that's not true." He fidgeted, but didn't look away. "What now?"

"I'm in the middle of something important, so I can't deal with Naomi yet. I want to see no more of our siblings dead and I want to see heaven fixed. But an Enochian memory spell went awry and I need to find out where those caught in it ended up first."

The healer nodded. "I remember a book detailing such a spell, but the rest is foggy. There was a reason I would never use that spell, but I don't recall what it was."

"Is that the spell related to past reincarnations?" Balthazar asked. "The one that sends everyone linked to the spell to an alternate plane to witness the memories as passive participants?"

Michael raised an eyebrow at the angel. "What do you know about it? I only had the list of ingredients and the general gist of the spell."

"I remember a book with the details of the casting of such a spell, but someone had torn out all the pages that in included ingredients for spells. I just remember that it didn't seem like a very pleasant way to recall forgotten things, since returning from such a soul searching event was not a guarantee. I don't have the book, but assuming no one's touched Raphael's private office, it should still be there." Balthazar swallowed when Michael's other eyebrow went up. "What?! I was a precocious fledgling. Things happened. And no, I'm not going to tell you everything I may or may not have done."

"If you're going to get the book, what should we do while you're gone?" Ephraim asked.

Michael lowered his eyebrows and thought about what needed to happen next. Looking at Ephraim he said, "Can you subtly start checking other Rit Zien for scarring to their grace like what I just healed? I want the Rit Zien in top form, and as you start healing them, they can start helping with the looking and the healing. It should be safe for me to tell them my first set of orders concerning my plans to restore heaven." He looked back at Balthazar. "Have you decided what you want to do yet?"

Balthazar shrugged. "I'll help if you need me to. I'm not a healer though."

"Your help will be appreciated." The archangel wanted to deal with Naomi before she could hurt anyone else, but that would have to wait. He needed to fetch that book. "I will let the Rit Zien know now to expect you, Ephraim."

" **Rit Zien** ." Michael called them on the angel radio, setting it so that only the Healers could hear him. When he was sure he had their attention he continued, " **Ephraim has my orders. I want you all healed fully, no scars on your grace. I will tell you what your next orders are when you've all been cleared. Tell no one else of your mission.** " He could feel the touch of confusion, but no one questioned the command.

Michael was about to tell Ephraim that if he was ready, he could go, but a quiet voice interrupted him. _"Mica, Mica I know whatever you're doing is really really important, but Luci did something, I don't know what, and I can't fix it 'cause my grace is all wonky and I don't know why."_


	6. Chapter 6

This is the shortest chapter so far, but this should be the shortest chapter there's going to be. I appreciate all the help from Nathy, Thallen, and Hyrule to make this chapter possible. I thought I was going to be lucky if this story got to 20k words. My document is currently almost 35k and I don't know where it ends.

Here's a quick who's who to refresh your memories in case you were getting lost. Sigyn is/was Mirim. Loki is/was Muriah and was reborn as Harry Potter (so that's who he looks like right now). Gabriel is Sleipnir and was Thing 6. Fenrir is Castiel, Hela is Luna Lovegood, and Jormungandr was a basilisk. Cookies to anyone who can guess which famous wizard he was once. Michael and Lucifer are the twins, Vali and Nari (not necessarily in that order) and were Things 3 and 4 respectively. Raphael was Thing 5.

Warning for a slightly graphic scene with Fenrir. Norse mythology was not kind to Loki's children. Possible tissue warning.

In this chapter, Bold text denotes enochian magic or wizard magic.

* * *

The consensus was that Loki and Gabriel could easily walk the world tree. Sleipnir had once taught Loki how to do it, after all. The colt turned archangel was physically fine, once he remembered how to walk on two legs rather than eight. Sigyn had never learned to walk the world tree herself, she didn't have the Seidr necessary. But as long as she didn't lose Loki or Sleipnir, she would be fine.

And so they began their journey along the limbs of Yggdrasil. "Asgard is at the top of Yggdrasil," Loki explained as they started climbing down the tree. The ash tree was giant, limbs large enough to walk in pairs as they descended towards the main trunk of the tree. Leafy branches swayed around them, threatening to knock them over if they ceased paying attention for even a moment.

"Is it reasonable to get Fenrir first?" Sigyn asked. She didn't remember exactly where Fenrir or Jor were located, only that Fen had been bound in the more physically painful way.

"Fen's on the island Lyngvi. It's in Lake Ámsvartnir," Loki answered. "That's in Niflheim. Jor's in the sea beneath Yggdrasil and Hela's in Hel, I think."

They continued descending the tree. It was difficult, with fierce winds threatening to blow them away and the branches shaking. The world tree had never been intended for this sort of travel, and there was a reason everyone else who needed to travel between worlds used the Bifrost.

They descended below the entrance to Midgard, coming to a place where the roots diverged, creating three paths. "One path to Jotunheim, one path to Hel, and one path to Niflheim."

* * *

"Ephraim?" Michael swallowed. "What do you know about fledgling archangels?"

The Healer shrugged. "Gabriel was no longer a fledgling when the next angels were born, so, nothing?"

"Balthazar, do as you will, harm no one, and please stop trading heaven's weapons for human souls. You're not a crossroads demon. And say nothing about what happened here today." Michael looked at Ephraim. "The Apocalypse is not going to happen, ever, but part of the reason is that Raphael cleansed Lucifer of the taint from the Mark of Cain. In doing so, they're both fledglings. I'm not sure exactly what occurred, but Raph is worried because something just happened. Will you come?"

The Healer agreed, so Michael flew them directly to Sigyn's kitchen. Lucifer was lying on the living room floor, wings haphazardly splayed on the ground. Raphael was kneeling with his head near Lucifer's chest. His wings were bent close together.

The living room was littered with feathers and fluff of two distinct colors, pale cream from Lucifer and brown with gold etching from Raphael. Raphael hadn't heard Michael and Ephraim land. "Luci, Luci, wake up."

"Raph, I brought a Healer to look at you and Luci. Are you okay?" Michael approached the smaller fledgling as Raph looked over his shoulder at him. The archangel bent to pick the fledgling up, careful to avoid rubbing against his already ruffled wings.

"Mica," Raph whimpered. "I's wonky."

Ephraim took a few steps towards them, but didn't approach further because he didn't want to scare or crowd the fledglings. He chose not to move silently so Michael and Raph could hear him.

The fledgling archangel turned his head and blinked at Ephraim. "Rit Zien." Raph held out his arms like he was reaching for the other healer.

The Rit Zien were their own garrison, but instead of having just a higher ranking angel or seraph as their garrison leader, Raphael had once been the head of the Rit Zien. After Lucifer had fallen and Father had left, Raphael's responsibilities had been greater such that another angel was promoted as the garrison leader of the Rit Zien, but that didn't mean that the Rit Zien didn't remember.

Ephraim approached, stepping within arm's length of Raphael. He held out his hand so the fledgling could touch him if he wanted to. Raphael reached for him, but not for his vessel and not for his hand. Raphael's fingers caught on Ephraim's wings. He didn't pull on the other's grace, didn't try to heal the angel who was already in good shape, and didn't try to heal himself. He merely held onto it, not that unlike a toddler grabbing at someone's hair.

The Healer grinned, shaking his head when Michael looked to scold Raphael. Instead, he reached out towards Raphael, running a light touch over the edge of the fledgling's wings. He ran his hand with the grain of the wings, carefully straightening the feathers his fingers brushed against as he went along the edge. The fledgling cooed.

"Can you guess what happened here?" Michael whispered quietly to the other angel.

"Their grace is weak and raw. I think one of them tried something that their grace wasn't ready for. This may not be related, but they may have also started a molt." Ephraim removed his hand from Raphael's wings. "May I go check on your brother?" he whispered to the fledgling. With a disappointed whine, Raphael pulled away from the healer, curling into Michael.

Michael continued where Ephraim left off, straightening Raphael's wings gently to avoid causing further injury to the raw grace. While Michael did that, Ephraim approached the prone fledgling. He settled back on his heels, casting a cursory glance, then looked deeper.

"Can you tell me more about the taint from the Mark?" Ephraim asked.

"I never saw it, so I don't know," Michael answered. "I had asked Raphael if he thought the two of us working together could heal the corruption it caused. Gabriel and I weren't sure why it turned them both into fledglings."

"I can explain that, I believe." Ephraim reached out to touch Lucifer's shoulder. "I believe it was something like a parasite, except instead of just feeding on his grace, it corrupted everything it touched. The grace mechanics of archangels are different though, aren't they? Lucifer Fell, but he didn't lose his grace. Seraphs don't need to return to heaven to restore their grace, and archangels, they _are_ grace, aren't they. So if Raphael destroyed every bit of the corruption, what would that do to their grace?"

"Using our grace doesn't destroy it under normal circumstances. We're beings of creation. So normally, we use our grace and things are created. The grace used isn't destroyed or used up, it just becomes something new. We don't run out because it comes back. Heaven's well-spring isn't a wellspring, it's Creation. But you're saying that Raph actually destroyed the corruption, which would have left only what was left of Lucifer's pure grace and what Raphael didn't use."

"Something like that," Ephraim replied. "They won't stay fledglings forever. The grace they have now will act as a seed and it will grow, just like it did when we were all fledglings to begin with. It will definitely take time."

"So what happened here?" Michael asked. "There are feathers everywhere and Luci is sleeping on the floor."

Ephraim smiled. "What happens when any fledgling spends more energy creating things than they should? It's healthy, like physical activity for humans, or spell casting for Wizarding children, but fledglings have to learn control, and teach their grace stamina, and they're still going to be hungry and worn out at the end of the day."

"They're both fine?"

"Yes. This is normal fledgling behavior. The feathers are probably from molting. Or vigorous activity with their wings. You may want to reconsider leaving them on their own, but I only say that because they might not understand all the cues their grace tries to give them."

Michael remembered Sigyn plying both Lucifer and himself with food whenever they visited her before Raphael had ever been born. He had never understood that, except it made sense now in an even greater context than the fact that Sigyn loved serving routine meals and loved when her family helped out. But Ephraim had a point about the supervision. Raphael and Lucifer couldn't hurt themselves, but that didn't mean he would trust them to cook. Neither one was tall enough to reach the stove and Sigyn would kill him if the fledglings burned down her house. He wouldn't even blame her. "I have an idea concerning the supervision. Is that everything?"

Ephraim nodded. "That's everything. Am I dismissed?" When Michael nodded, the Healer took flight and went back to heaven.

"Rit Zien," Raphael mumbled, burying his head in Michael's shoulder.

"Yep." Michael straightened a few more of Raph's feathers. "Alright. What do you want?"

"Rit Zien," Raphael repeated, voice muffled slightly by Michael's arm.

"And what do you want with the Rit Zien?"

"Rit Zien!" Raphael giggled. He pulled his head out of Michael's shoulder.

Michael pat Raphael on the head. "I need to go to heaven eventually, because I don't know what happened to Mom, Dad, and my blood siblings. If the Winchesters are okay with it, do you think you and Lucifer can handle staying with them for a few days?"

Raphael shrugged. "Rit Zien?"

"They're living in a bunker. Do you think they'd have books on the Rit Zien? They're probably inaccurate."

" **Rit Zien!** "

Michael shook his head at the Enochian. "Please don't summon the entire garrison of healers, Raph. But you can see Ephraim again later, when he's done restoring the Rit Zien." Letting go of Raphael, Michael took out Castiel's cell phone and dialed Dean's number.

"Hello?" came the electronic voice that sounded like Dean.

Michael blinked at the phone. "Dean? This is Michael. Before I can fetch a book from heaven to investigate the disappearance of Castiel and our family, I need someone to keep an eye on my fledgling siblings. Would you and Sam be willing to keep an eye on them in the bunker?"

"The fuck are you talking about? Fledglings? Why do you have baby angels? And how many are we talking about? Why can't you take them to heaven?"

"Two, Dean. There are two baby archangels and I can't take them to heaven until I have dealt with my sister who has been torturing my siblings for aeons. I can't deal with her until Gabriel, the Archangel of Justice comes back and he won't be back until I've figured out where he and Castiel and the rest of Sigyn's family has ended up as well. Can you please watch them for just a few days? They shouldn't be any trouble at all and I don't know who else to ask."

"Fine. Alright, alright. This bunker is huge, I'm sure we can handle it."

"Thank you. I will be there momentarily." Michael put the phone away and walked over to where Lucifer was sleeping. Raphael started mouthing Michael's wing, seemingly unable to avoid putting things in his mouth. Michael looked at what was causing the wet sticky feeling in his wing. "Raph… do you have to?" The young archangel didn't have very many teeth, but that didn't stop him from slobbering all over Michael's primary feathers.

He shifted Raph in his arms so that there was space for him to pick up the other sleeping archangel and flew to the front entrance of the bunker. There was a doorbell, but with his hands full, Michael had to hit it with his elbow.

Michael waited, with no indication that the bell had rung.

* * *

"Do you know which pathway leads where?" Sigyn asked. Loki had identified where they went, but not which was which. She stepped away from Sleipnir, towards the path in the middle. The path down the roots was not well lit for any of the paths, but this one seemed especially dark to her. This root was covered in black moss and what appeared to be spiders were crawling around in it.

She's about to look over the edge when Loki's voice called out. "Hel's that way. This other path leads to the lake." Sigyn turns around to see Loki pointing to the far path next to it. Sigyn could not see it so well as the dark path, but there appeared to be frost in the along the edges of the roots.

Sleipnir shivered, leaning his head into Loki's side. "We know that we're not really here, that this isn't the same Yggdrasil from another universe. So where are we in relation to the universe we've spent the last few aeons in?"

"It's likely another plane of existence," Loki said. "Like Heaven, or Hell, or Purgatory. It's clearly not one of those three, but that doesn't mean that more don't exist. Did you learn about the other planes when you were a fledgling?"

Sleipnir shrugged. "I just remember Limbo. That's where Luci's cage was. But that's the only other plane I remember. Our home is in its own plane too, but isn't it connected to heaven?"

"Only a little bit," Sigyn answered. "Heaven was the first plane in this universe, but it mostly exists outside the universe."

"Moving it was fun." Sleipnir yawned. "Is the island far?"

"We have to leave Yggdrasil, it's not safe to stop here," Loki said. "Would you like me to carry you?" When Sleipnir nodded, Loki picked Sleipnir up and put him on his shoulders. "Ready to continue, Sigyn?"

"Sounds good." Sigyn followed closely to Loki as he started down the last path. They held onto the waving fibers of the icy roots as they descended the root system and into a passage. They descended into the dark, and the roots gave way to ice sheets as it opened up to solid ground.

"Welcome to Niflheim," Loki said. "We need to find Lake Ámsvartnir."

"Sleipnir, can you feel Fenrir's grace?" Sigyn asked.

Sleipnir closed his eyes. It had been a long time since he'd actively tried to find grace, but since he couldn't feel the rest of the choir, he guessed that any grace he did find would probably be Castiel. After a moment, he found a dull light that had to be him. "That way," he said, pointing.

They trekked across the dark and snowy wasteland until they reached the lake. There was enough light coming from the center they could see their shadows across the black water. Sigyn walked around the lake, but could not find a boat. When she came back she asked, "I seem to recall stories that said it was only possible to get to Lyngvi certain times a year. I didn't find a boat."

"Mirim and Muriah could fly, do you think we still could?" Loki asked.

"Maybe in the normal universe," Sleipnir said. "But I don't think any of us could fly here. Castiel's grace, I can see it from here, but it appears as just a sliver of what it was when Michael fixed his connection to heaven."

"I was a shapeshifter in this universe," Loki said. "A user of _Seidr_. But a shapeshifter. And I wonder…" Loki stepped into the lake. This part was shallow, so he walked out until he was knee deep in the water. He focused on the Seidr he could feel in his skin and shifted. A moment later there was a large hippocampus with a Sleipnir sitting on its back.

Sigyn raised an eyebrow, but she trudged out into the water so she could climb onto Loki's back. She put her arms around Sleipnir. When he was sure they were ready to go, Loki took off, swimming towards the island.

It took awhile to reach the island, but once they had, Sleipnir led the way to Fenrir. It was worse than Sigyn had anticipated.

Fenrir was bound with metal chains inside a cave. The chains were tight around his body, preventing him from any inch of motion. Even in the dark, Sigyn could see the worn patches in his fur, and old dried blood where the chains had torn into his skin. That wasn't the worst of it. Someone had decided they couldn't just bind Loki's son, they also had to drive a sword through his maw, holding it open. The very large puppy was forced to keep his mouth open, drool running down endlessly. He couldn't move, he couldn't eat or drink. Sigyn wasn't even entirely sure how he could breathe.

"Do something," Sigyn whimpered to Loki. She approached slowly. "Fenrir, Castiel, we'll get you out of there." The wolf looked at her, blinking slowly,

Loki circled Fenrir once, trying to figure out what to do. The chains were held in place by icicles. "I can get rid of these icicles so we can push the chains off without triggering Ragnarok, can you get rid of the sword?" " **Incindio.** " The use of wizard magic worked, creating a small blaze of red fire in the first icicle had been. He continued casting the spell near each of the icicles holding Fenrir in place.

Meanwhile, Sigyn considered the sword in Fenrir's mouth. It had to go in the way that would cause Fenrir no damage. She wasn't even sure how it had gone away for Ragnarok to start the first time around. She wasn't sure she could banish it altogether, but she could shrink it. " **Sword, shrink** ," she hissed in Enochian.

The sword shrunk, dropping to ground. Sigyn eyed it with distaste. Loki finished melting the ice, and Sleipnir came loose, sliding off Fenrir. The wolf stumbled with the loss of the weight, moving for the first time in years. As he stumbled, his form shimmered, replaced by a child in Aesir shape a moment later.

Sigyn dove to keep Fenrir upright. "Hello, Fenrir," she whispered. "We're here now."

"Mom," Fenrir whimpered hoarsely in Sigyn's direction. "Mama," he whimpered at Loki. He sat, Sigyn following him to the ground as Sleipnir laid down next to his brother.

"Can Hela wait til morning?" Sleipnir asked. "We need to rest."

"Yes," Sigyn said, as she and Loki curled up around their children. "Rest."


	7. Chapter 7

We're in the home stretch! I finished writing the last chapter this afternoon, so all that's left is proof-reading!

TheRiverScribe owns Raphael's sloth.

Quick notes- Sleipnir is Gabriel, Fenrir is Castiel, Hela is Luna Lovegood, and anyone who comments with Jormungandr's Wizarding identity gets a digital cookie.

* * *

The front door of the bunker opened, revealing Samuel Winchester. "We kind of expected you to appear inside the bunker. But come in, come in. Are these the fledglings you wanted us to babysit while you go off doing whatever it was that you needed to do?"

"They're not babies. They're fledglings. Then again, I suppose the sentiment is similar." Michael considered. "Fledglings have more needs than angels. They eat and sleep, though not as much as humans. I'm not sure if these two will tell you that they're hungry, but they need to eat."

"What about their powers?" Sam asked. He stepped out of the way to allow Michael entrance into the bunker, and then led the way towards the empty room he and Dean had decided would work.

Michael followed. "They have angelic powers. Using them will make them sleepy, like human children who have played hard and fall asleep. That's why they're asleep right now. A healer I ran into earlier said they may have started a molt, so don't be too surprised if there are feathers."

"How did it go with Balthazar earlier?"

"He was having far too much fun reveling in human decadence. I have no idea why he thought trading heaven's weapons for human souls was appropriate, but I believe that once I fix heaven, he can be convinced to return them."

"You just let him be?" Sam asked. He rounded another corner in the bunker.

"I don't know how many of my siblings Naomi tortured. Balthazar may have left heaven because of that, but I refuse to kill any more of my siblings if it can be helped. Balthazar gave me no reason to kill him."

"So what did you do about Lucifer? You said the apocalypse is over, and Sigyn said it was because of Raphael, but what could he have possibly done? Dean said that when he and Cas trapped Raphael in holy fire, he was all for the world to end."

"Do you even understand why Raph and I wanted the world to end?" Michael didn't shout, because he didn't want to disturb either fledgling sleeping in his arms. They didn't need to hear this. "The first thing I can remember is opening my eyes and seeing Lucifer. Mortals may hear that I was the oldest, but Lucifer and I were born in the same instant of one another. We were twins, Sam. I couldn't kill my twin any more than you could kill Dean. And maybe I did the wrong thing by putting him in the cage in the first place, but ' _God spoke, and he said if I didn't lock Lucifer in the cage, he would put me in there instead_ _and_ kill _Lucifer._ So I did. I did it because I could have handled being in the cage, but I couldn't let _Him_ kill the brother I was closest to."

"So you were going to kill him when he got out?"

"There's way more to the story than that. But no. There's no scenario in which I could have killed by twin. If it had come down to an actual battle, I would not have defended myself." Michael stopped moving. He and Lucifer couldn't even remember which of Sigyn's children they were. At this point, they could only remember being one and the same, but maybe that was for the best. "Lucifer wasn't acting of his own free-will. In the beginning of this universe, there were two primordial deities. God and his sister, Amara. He was Light, and she was Dark and whatever he created, she destroyed. So he created a plane of existence called heaven, and then he created his four archangels. We started out as fledglings and he didn't make us all at once. But time as it is now didn't exist then. And eventually, eventually he sent the four of us to defeat Amara and lock her in a cage. When Amara was defeated, Lucifer was the least injured, and God gave him the key to lock her away. But it corrupted him. It corrupted him and he started doing deceitful and evil things. He passed the Mark to Cain after convincing him to kill his brother, and that's where demons came from. But even after passing off the Mark, Lucifer wasn't free of its influence. It corrupted his grace, Sam. It corrupted his grace and none of us ever thought to examine it, and _He_ chose to lock his favorite son in solitary confinement instead of checking to make sure nothing was wrong with him."

Sam turned around to look at Michael. "You're going to stand here and blame God for the apocalypse mess?!"

"God left not long after shoving Lucifer in the cage. We thought he was dead. And then Gabriel was gone too. He had us all convinced he had died. Raphael and Gabriel were close. As close as Lucifer and I were in the beginning. The Raphael that wanted the end of the world? He wanted to get to Paradise so he could see his favorite little brother again. The little brother that invented the sloth in the image of what he saw in Raphael and the platypus because he saw what he liked in other creatures. The little brother that fell asleep curled around a baby dragon because we had all exhausted ourselves creating them."

"But Gabriel is Sleipnir?"

"That does not negate the fact that in this universe, he was my baby brother. And when Lucifer almost killed him, he saw what he was looking for. I had wondered since the Cage door closed if Raphael and I together could fix Lucifer. Raphael saved Sigyn's life and found out that the baby brother he missed so much was still alive, but only because of Sigyn's actions. At the time, Sigyn and Loki had only managed to track down their first four children. Gabriel saw two things in Lucifer. First, that the taint from the Mark should not have been there, and second, that Lucifer was one of Sigyn's missing children." Michael wasn't entirely sure why he was telling Sam all this, except that it was important that he understand that the Lucifer that had tried so hard to use him as a vessel was not the Lucifer he had been in the beginning, the Lucifer he was now. Even if Michael wasn't sure he should tell the Winchesters exactly which two fledglings they would be babysitting.

"Vali and Nari, right? The twins that in mythology were the children of Sigyn and Loki? Didn't Odin turn one of them into a wolf?"

"It's not that strange that I was the baby brother in the universe we were born in and the oldest brother in this one. But don't you dare mention wolves. There's still nightmares about that. Anyway, Gabriel's observations convinced Raphael that my suggestion would work, except he didn't wait for me. He destroyed all the residual effects from the Mark in Lucifer."

Sam glanced at the two sleeping fledglings Michael was holding. "Let me guess how the story ends. One of those fledglings in Raphael and one of them is Lucifer. And if they meant us any harm at all, you wouldn't have brought them here."

"All their memories are intact, as far as any of us know. But for the most part, they just act like fledglings. Sigyn loves them and she loves having them around. I think she still feels cheated that she and Loki didn't get to raise most of their children. That wasn't the first universe, and all she ever wanted was to be a mother." Michael glanced down the hallway. "Are we almost to wherever it was you were leading me? I'd like to put these two to bed."

"Sorry." Sam turned around and finished leading the way to the room he and Dean had selected. There were two twin sized beds in the room. "Will this do?"

"Yes," Michael agreed.

"Alright. Well, I'll go tell Dean you're here. Which fledgling is which?"

Michael tucked the fledglings into bed, telling Sam as he did so which was which. As Sam stepped towards the doorway, he went to Lucifer. It seemed like a bad idea to just leave the fledgling in another place without first telling him what was happening. "Hey, Luci, will you wake up?"

It took a few minutes, but Lucifer eventually woke up. "Mica?"

"Hey, kiddo. I need to run up to Heaven to find out what happened with the memory spell, do you think you'll be okay staying with the Winchesters for a few days? Raphael's sleeping over there."

"Sam?" Lucifer whimpered, tone conveying his fear that Sam might retaliate for everything he might hold Lucifer responsible for.

"If anything goes wrong, you can call me, or Ephraim, he's a Rit Zien Raphael likes, or Balthazar. Although it might be best if you only call Balthazar as a last resort. But don't hurt the Winchesters."

"Everything will be okay?" Lucifer asked.

"I think everything will be just fine," Michael replied. "Make sure you and Raph eat, okay?" Lucifer nodded. "I love you. I'll be back as soon as I can."

When he was sure Lucifer and Raph would be okay, and with a last glance at the hunter standing silently in the corner of the room, he flew to Heaven.

* * *

Sam waited for Michael to leave, listening to the quiet whispers as Michael soothed Lucifer. He was wary that Lucifer was here, but Michael had been adamant that this wasn't the same archangel that had wanted to end the world. It seemed unreal that after everything that had led up to here, that it could so easily be over. Dean had said yes, had been very sure about the choice he was making, so it wasn't just an attempt to lull them in a false sense of security. There would be no purpose to that.

Sam met Dean in the kitchen, mind reeling. What the hell was he supposed to tell Dean? 'Oh yeah, by the way, we're not just babysitting any fledglings, but Raphael and Lucifer themselves?' He didn't know exactly how the conversation with Dean, Cas, and Raphael had gone, but he was sure it hadn't been pleasant.

"How'd it go?" Dean asked.

Sam shrugged. "Michael put two sleeping fledglings in the bedroom we picked for them. One of them looked about two and the other about four or five. They just looked like babies to me."

"Really powerful babies that could kill us, Sam," Dean replied.

Sam shrugged. "I don't think Michael would have brought them here if they meant us any harm. And I suspect that if they did hurt us, Michael would just bring us back again."

"He promised no more angel business. Why the hell did we agree to this?"

Sam poured himself a cup of coffee. He was going to need it. "He didn't have anyone else to trust, and who knows when, if, we'd see Cas again if Michael doesn't find out where they are."

"Surely Cas, Gabriel, two powerful whatever-they-are, and whoever else went missing can bring themselves back without Michael's help."

"And what if they can't, Dean? What if it really does take Michael's help to bring them back?"

Dean's phone rang. With a glare at Sam reminding the younger Winchester that this was far from over, he answered it. "Hello?"

"Hello, Squirrel." Dean mouthed Crowley at Sam.

Dean put the phone on speaker. "What do you want, Crowley?"

"I was curious about how the apocalypse was going. But I saw the strangest thing today. Down in Limbo, the deepest part of Hell, there used to be a Cage. You know, the Cage Lucifer was in until you two fuckers decided opening it was a good idea? Anyway, it's not there anymore. There's this fucking gigantic ash tree in its place. It's huge. And someone decided to flood Limbo with sea water. This is _not cool_. I want to know what's going on and I want you two to find out!" Click.

"Ash tree in Limbo?" Dean looked at Sam. "Why would the Cage be replaced by some Ash tree?"

"How should I know?" Sam shrugged, putting his empty coffee cup in the sink. "I'm going to bed. We'll probably need all the sleep we can get if we're going to be babysitting fledglings. At least they need sleep too."

Sam headed to his room, grabbing the translation of Snorri's Poetic Edda on his way. If Loki's history had been recorded with any accuracy, then he needed all the understanding of Michael and Lucifer that he could get. And why were wolves so familiar…?

Sam didn't figure out anyone's motivation, but he found the Ash tree at around 3 AM. "Dean! Dean! I know why there's an Ash tree in Limbo!"

Dean woke rapidly. "The fuck, Sam! It could have waited until morning!"

"The tree in Limbo is Yggdrasil, the world tree in Norse Mythology. I think that's where Cas and his family are."

"Why there?" Dean asked.

"I don't know! But you should call Michael, he'll want to know."

"Why can't you do it? It's your research. You didn't need to wake me up, you could have just called him."

Sam swallowed. There was plenty of reasons, not least being that he still had no idea why the angels tolerated him. Sure, Michael had told Zachariah that Sam's soul was beautiful, but Zach had ticked Michael off by messing with Dean, his _vessel_. That didn't mean he actually felt that way about him. What it he'd only said that to argue with Zachariah? What if he didn't feel that way? What if he even told Sam as much? Sam didn't want that, didn't think he could handle that kind of rejection.

"Sam! Just call Michael already so I can go back to bed!" Dean tossed his cell at Sam. Sam dialed Cas' cell, hitting each button with more apprehension. What if Michael didn't want to hear it? What if he hung up because it was Sam? What if…

The phone was answered on the second ring, "Hello," and it took Sam everything he had not to hang up.

* * *

Michael flew straight to Raphael's office. There was no reason to try anywhere else first. He didn't care to run into any other angels because he was on a mission. He was looking for some old book Balthazar had found. This wasn't where he had found the recipe, but since it was where Balthazar had likely found the book after considering trying to cast the spell.

The dominating feature of the room was the heavy limbed cecropia tree, a rainforest native with dark bark, that erupted mid trunk from the floor and grew seemingly unheeded through the walls and ceiling. The slightest movement among the branches revealed to Michael what he had already assumed to be true. Raphael's Sloth was still here, sleeping peacefully in a limb of the tree. Michael smiled at it.

This was the first sloth, the one Gabriel had spent so much time crafting by hand. Most of the 'firsts' had not been kept in Heaven, but Raphael had not been about to give up the creature Gabriel had made especially for him. He approached Sloth. "Hello." The sloth opened a lazy eye at Michael. It didn't move. This wasn't a surprise to Michael. Gabriel, after all, had watched Raphael sit and study entire life cycles without moving. The sloth wasn't lazy. It was infinitely patient. He considered. "Would you want to go visit Raphael?" He didn't think Sigyn would object if he brought Raphael's sloth home. It was his little brother's friend, and being a fledgling again, he might appreciate having one of his friends back.

The sloth didn't answer, not that Michael expected him to, and the archangel studied the rest of the room, trying to decide where the best place would be to start looking.

Raphael had always been a scholar, and that was visible in the way he kept his office, although maybe not at first glance. A warm dark wood, similar in color to the bark of the tree, although Michael suspected it to be Hickory, rather than an exotic wood, dominated the features in the room. Tall shelves graced earthy colored walls, and were overstuffed with books, scrolls, tomes, and a multitude of mismatched papers that would not be contained. The papers trailed from the shelves, scattering themselves across the room. A large desk of the same build lay across one side of the room, a comfortable yet simple wooden chair sat behind it and Michael knew it was the place that Raphael had spent so much of his time studying and learning. It was seemingly just as chaotic as the rest of the room, although Michael knew that there must be some type of organization put in place by Raphael to keep all of his notebooks, pads, and sheaves organized, or else he would never find anything, let alone be constructive enough for the stellar productivity for which he had been known.

Michael wasn't sure where to begin. Balthazar had suggested that he was looking for a book with the page he'd found torn out, but Raphael would never consider tearing out pages acceptable. The page he'd found had been in another room, but what if Raphael had brought said book back here to repair it? Would it still be here, or would he have returned it to the library?

Being here made Michael nostalgic. He found he didn't want to disturb anything because despite knowing exactly where Raphael was and why, he couldn't help but feel like Raphael would return any moment and scold him for disrupting his space. _"Michael! Stop touching! I'll never find them again!"_ But that wouldn't happen, because Raphael was with the Winchesters. He played with his food, repeated words over and over again because he liked the way they sounded, and he didn't chastise his siblings for messing things up. In all likelihood _he_ would be the one to mess his things up, considering his current fledgling status.

Michael swallowed. He needed to focus. He was looking for a book with the Memory spell, written in Enochian. Every book ever written could be found in heaven, so that narrowed down the search a little bit. Had Raphael known that Balthazar had gotten into his things? Balthazar didn't remember getting into trouble, but that didn't mean Raphael hadn't known. Either way, he didn't think it was something a fledgling should get their hands on, and so Raphael may have chosen to move it off the ground. And yet, the appearance of the book itself had been something interesting enough to even attract a fledgling's attention to begin with.

Balthazar had said many pages had been missing, so it might have looked interesting for some reason related to that. Michael approached a cluttered desk, hoping to find something useful. There were books in various states of wear, but mostly just papers and journals. Michael was rifling through a sheaf of papers when a page from another pile blew off the table and onto the floor.

Despite the large quantity of papers already on the floor, Michael couldn't help but pick up the paper that had fallen. He hadn't looked at it yet and he wanted to put it back. Someday, someday when heaven was fixed and Raphael could be trusted not to make a mess, he would get to bring his little brother back here and he wanted it to be the way Raphael left it. He didn't even know if this was how it had been when Raphael had been here last.

As he was putting it back on the desk, Michael saw what the paper was. It was a piece of paper with Raphael's neat scrawl that was easily identified as a list. Michael blinked. _When was the last time he'd read something Raphael wrote?_ But that wasn't the important question. On the side of the list was scrawled, "Why are all the lists of ingredients for these spells missing?" At the top of the page, the topic was scrawled. _"Enochian Healing Spells for Emotional Pain and Memory Retrieval."_

And there, near the bottom of the list, was the spell Michael was looking for. There was even a note about that spell at the bottom of the page. "What are the safety precautions, Raph? It's possible inter-dimensional travel, isn't it. Would the recollection spell have been better? If you had not deaged yourself, you could have told me this before they ever cast that spell."

With the book's title written out for Michael, it was easier to look for. It was not any of the books on Raphael's desk, but the note also meant he hadn't finished working with it. Michael examined the floor. There were papers everywhere. There was little on the floor besides papers, except not far from the desk there were a few stacks of books.

Michael approached the stacks of books on the floor. The stacks weren't tall, each a few feet at most. They were a good height to be interesting to a fledgling, not unlike a stack of blocks. One of the stacks had been knocked over, random collection of mismatched worn out books lying haphazardly on the floor. The assortment itself was colorful, the books' variance in their covers provided a myriad of colors and textures.

Some books were in terrible condition, pages loose in bindings and falling out of their covers. Other books had all their pages, but the pages had torn off pieces in different places. They were probably books Raphael had rescued but hadn't had time to pull out those that were lost causes and fix the ones that could be fixed. The book Michael was looking for was right there in the books that had fallen over. It was a few feet away, spine up with pages spread out on the floor, as though someone had dropped it in their haste to leave.

Michael picked the book up off the floor. _"Enochian Healing Spells for Emotional Pain and Memory Retrieval."_ The cover wasn't as worn out as some books were, but it was easy to tell that countless pages were missing. Thumbing through it, he found that his little brother had written on the bottom of each exactly which spell it was concerning, like a footnote for each page. Colored sticky papers covered in Raphael's neat scrawl were stuck on each of the pages, lists of possible ingredients, notes on the usage of the spells, whether Raphael had ever used the spell or a similar one, and if so, would he use it again. Michael wanted nothing more than to stand there and read the entirety of the book just for Raphael's opinions, but he didn't have time for that. With much regret, he flipped through until he came into the section with notes and warnings for the reincarnation remembrance spell.

The sticky note at the top was caution sign red. "I swear that if someone mistakenly uses this spell because the list of ingredients got left out, I will find out who tore out all these pages and I will turn them into a bunny and give them to Gabriel to play with."

That was… not what Michael was expecting from Raph. He continued reading through the spell warnings, notes, and extra information. And Raphael's irate scrawl on various colored papers. Not only did the spell need to be anchored to whoever it was being cast on, but the spell would in addition automatically anchor to any human or angel who gave up some piece of themselves as a spell component given that they were in the same dimension the spell was cast. And if the spell anchors weren't anchored to their dimension, they could sometimes end up in another dimension. * _Spell anchors have been irretrievable after the casting of this spell and the author of this book would not be held responsible for any spell mishaps._

They weren't in heaven or on Earth. The obvious answer was Purgatory or Limbo or Hell, but Michael was well aware that the possibilities were endless. If he had to traverse every single dimension, he would, if that's what it took to find his family. He _could_ fix heaven without Gabriel, but he wasn't going to. He had spent aeons separated from his parents and his siblings. _No longer._

There was a soft knock on the wall next to the open door. Michael turned around to see Ephraim standing in the doorway, expression of concern on his face. "Michael?" Ephraim's voice was quiet, tentative, like he was still nervous at what might happen if he spoke to the archangel out of turn. When Michael nodded, but didn't speak, Ephraim continued. "Are you alright?" When he decided that Michael was not going to smite him, he stepped into the room, slowly approaching Michael. He stopped a few paces away from the archangel. "It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, but it might help."

Michael closed the book in his hands. He wanted to keep it, but he needed to put it back more. When was the last time Raphael had even been here? He suspected it had been Balthazar who had knocked the pile over, but why would Raph have left it? That had happened centuries past. Raphael's duties had changed after Father left, had Raph been so busy or preoccupied that he hadn't stepped in here since before Lucifer fell?

"Michael?" Ephraim repeated. He stepped closer. Michael wasn't responding, so Ephraim decided he was going to try something else. He really hoped Michael wasn't going to smite him, but once, this had been the normal treatment for these kinds of things.

Michael was still contemplating Raphael when he felt the warmth of another angel next to him. Besides holding fledglings, when had another angel hugged him? Who had it been?

"Michael," Ephraim repeated yet again as he hugged Michael. "What are you thinking about?"

"I was thinking about Raphael." Michael didn't push Ephraim away. Even though he was worried about his family and still angry at Naomi, and regretful that it had taken the deaging of two archangels to heal Lucifer of the Mark when he should have been healed instead of thrown in a cage, his grace was almost purring. "And I was thinking about…"

Ephraim waited for Michael to finish the sentence, but he didn't. "You were thinking about your family, right? The family you needed this book to find." Michael flinched, but Ephraim didn't let him pull away. "Michael, it's okay. They need you. We need you too, but Heaven isn't going to fall apart. It's been this way for centuries. A few more days aren't going to hurt any of us any more than we already have been."

Castiel's phone rang. When Michael found out how cell phones worked, he would wonder about it, but not then. He was surrounded by Ephraim's warmth, and Rit Ziens were even warmer than other angels, and he didn't want to move. But Ephraim seemed to understand the importance, because he did pull away. "Answer it," he said. "It might be important." Michael hesitated. "It's okay. Everything will be okay. If you go bring your other family back, maybe you'll get to cuddle with them too."

"Maybe so," Michael agreed. He pulled out Castiel's phone and answered it on the second ring. He waited a moment. "Hello?" There was a crash, followed by a far-away shout of surprise, but no click that represented the ending of a call. A few moments later, Michael repeated, "Hello?"

"I'm sorry," was the first thing Sam said. "The fledglings are still sleeping, everything is fine, but this is important. I know you had to go find a book related to the spell that didn't work correctly, but I think I know where they are."

"Sam?" Michael could follow what Sam was saying for the most part, but he didn't understand the way Sam was going about it.

"Crowley called. I know he's a demon and I know he's not to be trusted because I _know_ that my mistakes stain my soul, but demons are selfish by nature which means he's serving his own best interests and if there is salt water in Limbo, that's _bad for them._ And why would he be lying? There's no way he knows what the ash tree represents and I only know because I was reading the Poetic Edda which is human exaggeration at best if Asgard happened at all, especially if it was in another universe, so how could Snorri have even known? But _Crowley wouldn't_."

"Sam? I think you're rambling," Michael said. "What are you trying to say?"

"Crowley said there's an Ash Tree in Limbo where the Cage used to be. According to Snorri's Poetic Edda, which is obvious human exaggeration as much or more than the bible was, says that Yggdrasil was an ash tree surrounded by a sea. It didn't exist until today, yesterday I mean, possibly right after the spell was cast, which suggests that your parents and siblings might be there. Right?"

Michael blinked. "It's worth looking into." He considered everything Sam had said. "Sam, why did you say your mistakes stain your soul? You have a very old soul, that's true, but it's not stained or tainted, merely colored by the whole of the experiences it has ever gone through."

"But…." Even through the static of the phone, he could hear the surprise coloring the hunters voice.

"But nothing. Do you think I would have left my little brothers with you and your brother if I thought your soul was marred in any way that might affect them?"

"I just…"

Michael waits to hear Sam's argument, but nothing comes. "I know this conversation is important, but can it wait until I get back from Limbo and we can have it in person?"

"I… Yes. I'm sorry."

"You don't need to apologize," Michael said. The phone clicked. Michael wasn't sure what had been going on in Sam's head, but whatever it was, he was sure it probably needed to be said.

"He's in pain too," Ephraim said. Michael glanced at him. "I've heard from someone in one of the soldier garrisons that when they had met Sam Winchester, Uriel called him an abomination and Castiel addressed him as the boy with the demon blood." Michael raised an eyebrow. "Um... I'll stop gossiping and go back to healing the rest of the Rit Zien so you can go to Limbo. Are you taking any backup?"

"I'm sure I can find a giant ash tree where the Cage used to be. If Sigyn and Loki remember who they used to be, which they should, then they will likely gather their children. Hela and Fen were in Niflheimr and Jor was in the big sea that Crowley was complaining about. They will probably go for Jor last, so I will go find him first. Goodbye, Ephraim."

Ephraim was gone, so Michael decided to leave as well, taking the book with him. He could always come back to return it or get a different book. Michael flew.

* * *

Sigyn woke first. She could feel the warmth of one of her children at her side. This was what she'd been missing in all the universes since the first one. But this wasn't good enough. Not until she had all of her children back. _All of them._ She shifted, careful not to wake up the child nearest her. _And didn't she have so much practice._ It turned out that the child she had been trying not to wake was Sleipnir and he was already awake.

"Mom," Sleipnir whispered, moving his head to rest it against her shoulder.

"Hey." Sigyn reached over to rub his shoulder. "What's up?"

"Were we really just "things" in the first universe?"

"You saw that too, huh?" Sigyn sighed. "I'm sorry, Slip."

"Mama," Fen said from the other side of Sleipnir, referring to Loki. "Where are we headed next?"

"Hela next," Loki answered. "If you guys are ready to go?"

Both children of Loki turned angels agreed. They walked back to the water so Loki could turn into a hippocampus and carry them to shore.

"Is Hela in Hel?" Sigyn asked.

"I thought she was here," Sleipnir said. "It was snowy and icy and cold."

"I thought only the dishonorable dead went to Helheim and that Hela lived elsewhere," Fenrir interjected.

"Or you could just, you know, ask me where I live? Or not. I mean it's all the same to me."


	8. Chapter 8

AN: This chapter could not have been written without Lilith, Hyrule, and Cobalt. Their help was appreciated greatly.

Fen is Castiel. Gabriel is Sleipnir.

This is the penultimate chapter, but our story won't end there. Michael hasn't fixed heaven yet.

* * *

Michael flew to where Lucifer had come out of the cage. Technically it was just a destroyed building, but he was an archangel and he didn't want to do anything with the cage or what had been the cage. This was about Limbo. This was about Limbo and apparently about finding a gigantic ash tree that was supposed to be Yggdrasil and a sea of salt water in a place where salt was a bad thing.

Michael was about to jump when a flash of light settled near him. He stared at it. "Balthazar? Why are you here?"

Balthazar shrugged. "Ephraim said he was worried about you and that he'd smite me a few times in the painful non-lethal way if you didn't come back in one piece. And I don't know why he's under the impression that I can help because _you're an archangel_ and anything that can hurt you would definitely kill me. But I also think Ephraim's a few knives short of a silverware drawer, and while I realize that the first rule of the Rit Zien is to do no harm, I also don't want to know what happens if he thinks I'm derelict in accompanying you to Limbo. He scares me more than you do for some weird reason and I think he actually imprinted on you."

Michael snorted, but then realized that Balthazar may have been correct. "He did seem to think I should take some backup, although I didn't realize his suggestion wasn't optional. Well, if you want to come, follow me."

Michael took flight. It was more like jumping, but this was the best place to travel to another dimension. This wasn't about the Cage itself, though. This was about skipping through hell altogether and going straight to the bottom. _Limbo_. Even as he was gliding, Michael could tell that Balthazar was right behind him.

When Lucifer had been in Limbo, he had been unable to feel the host or hear the choirs. In reverse, they had been cut off from him. Not quite in the same manner that Gabriel had cut himself off to mimic death, but close enough. Part of that effect had been the cage. It had acted as a dampener against what little noise that made it to Limbo.

Michael could still hear the choir, but it was a whisper. From the way Balthazar shuddered and yelped and almost ceased flying altogether, Michael realized that Balthazar could not hear it. He quietly started humming in the choir making sure that Balthazar would hear something. His brother calmed.

They landed in a mess of feathers and salt water at the base of the ash tree. The rest of the choir was still audible to Michael, but barely. What he could hear clearly now, were Castiel and Gabriel.

Beside Michael, Balthazar shook, wings shivering with the salt water. "This is Limbo?"

"This is Limbo. Before the ash tree, which is new, there used to be a cage. We're definitely in the right place, I can hear Gabriel and Castiel."

"It's quiet," Balthazar said. "I don't like it."

"I know," Michael replied. "Let's find Jor so we can get out of here sooner. Gabriel and Castiel are together. That much I can tell."

"And this Jor is, where, exactly?"

"The endless sea. Or at least, that's what the Asgardians called it in the first universe. This mockery clearly isn't endless, but it's impossible to say whether or not theirs was. Jor is probably trapped in a giant serpent form, biting his tail." Michael studied the dark water surrounding the tree.

"Why?"

"I…. honestly have no idea. Odin was unkind to his second son."

"That's an understatement and you know it."

Michael and Balthazar looked over to see a figure approaching. Michael couldn't help but smile at the fact that his brother was still wearing his green robes from centuries past. _Some things never change._ "Jor. This is Balthazar. Balthazar, this is my brother, the world eating serpent."

Balthazar raised an eyebrow at the man, _wizard_. "Slytherin? That's house of snakes. You don't look like a snake, but that doesn't mean your animagus isn't a snake. Or maybe you're just a shapeshifter of some kind."

Jor grinned at Michael while the other gave Balthazar a look of astonishment.

"Hey, don't look at me like that! I told you, I escaped from heaven awhile ago and I wanted to learn about _all_ the humans. Firewhiskey's incredible! It can get an angel drunk!"

Michael raised an eyebrow, idly wondering if it was possible for Balthazar to still be a fledgling. He was a little concerned about what might happen if Balthazar and Lucifer ended up in a room together. _Something would burn. Probably the world._

"It's been a long time since I had a good glass of Firewhiskey," Jor replied. "After the day I've had, I think that would really hit the spot."

"After we get out of this place." Michael rolled his eyes. "Any idea where everyone else might be?"

"If Fen and Hela were in Niflheimr, then they'll probably come here after that," Jor replied. "Fancy a climb up the roots?"

Michael closed his eyes. Down here in Limbo, he could feel the grace of his angelic siblings on this plane. Balthazar was the easiest to find because he was closest. Fenrir and Gabriel were together and the only other grace, so it wasn't much harder to find them. They were moving, and they weren't that far. Good. "They're on their way. We can wait here for them."

* * *

After Sam's awkward phone call with Michael, Dean went back to bed. Sam chose not to. Even though he hadn't gone to bed yet, he wasn't tired. Instead of sleeping, he went to check on the fledglings. Sam hadn't made up his mind about them yet. For most of his life, he prayed to some God that apparently wasn't listening anymore and he'd believed in angels. After he'd first met Castiel and Uriel, he hadn't been able to help the feeling of disappointment. And maybe no one had been answering the prayers of other people, but it really felt like they were telling him specifically that he wasn't worth listening to because he was nothing more than the demon blood forced down his throat in infancy. Was there even an age of accountability? If he'd died in infancy, or sometime right after the fire, would he have gone to hell for something he'd had no say in? No ability to fight? What did that say about him as a person, and why was Michael being so chill about it?

Sam was jolted out of his thoughts by a solid weight settling against his legs. Glancing down, he found that there was a fledgling hugging his shins. It was the larger of the two fledglings, the one Michael had identified as Lucifer, but Sam wasn't scared, not really. He supposed it was easy to let one's guard down when faced with something that looked as innocent as a child. But maybe, maybe Michael had the right idea. If Michael's brother, Lucifer, he who was considered the father of evil, could have redemption, maybe Sam could too.

Sam bent his knees into a squat so he was closer to the same height as Lucifer. "Hello," he said calmly, benevolently, reaching down to pet Lucifer on the head. "How did you sleep?"

"Want Mica," the fledgling whimpered into Sam's shins.

"I'm sorry, Michael went to Limbo to fetch your family. Sigyn and Loki and your siblings?"

"Mommy and Daddy," Lucifer supplied.

Sam didn't know very much about children. What were you supposed to do when they were homesick for their family? Love and hugs, right? What had Dean done when they'd been little and Sam had cried for Mommy and Daddy, after their mom had died and their dad was never around because he was off hunting anything and everything instead of raising his babies? Dean had held him. Sam remembered the feeling of being safe, even if that was all he could remember.

"May I hold you?" Sam went with. He didn't really want to deal with a screaming fledgling if said fledgling decided he really really didn't want to be held. It was three am, even if he was at least mostly awake.

"Up!" Lucifer exclaimed, untangling himself from Sam and holding up his arms.

Maybe he was sleeping, Sam decided, because why would any universe have small angel children that wanted to be held by him? Surely they could feel his tainted soul as strongly as their older siblings. But he reached down to pick the fledgling up and hold him. He felt a soft warm touch on his shoulder and it was comforting. He couldn't see it, but he realized that must be the fledgling's wing.

At Stanford, there had been a visiting Orthologist with a falcon, and he might not have gone except Jess had really really wanted to go, and afterwards, she had let people in the audience come up and taught them how to pet the falcon without hurting it. Jess had really wanted to pet the bird, so he'd gone with her and he wasn't going to, but the orthologist must have seen that Sam really did want to pet the bird but was used to denying himself the things that he wanted, and had insisted that he should too. So he had, and he had enjoyed it.

Which brought him back to what was probably a wing resting on his shoulder. He wanted to know what kind of wing it was. Michael had said there was an imminent molt and feathers, but were they smooth or fuzzy? If he touched it, would he even be able to tell? He couldn't see it, but did that mean he could touch it? He felt the weight of it on his arm, so clearly it must be physical to some extent.

"Luci? May I touch your wing?"

The fledgling put his head on Sam's shoulder. "Mmhmm," he hummed agreeably.

From what Sam remembered about the falcon, it was not a good idea to rub the feathers against the grain. Were angel wings the same way? From the weight on his shoulder, Sam could tell which direction was forward and which was backwards, so he reached with the hand not supporting Lucifer to run his hand along the edge of where the thought the wing was, with the grain. It was soft, and he could tell that it was feathers even without being able to see it. Some of the feathers were clearly ruffled, so as he ran his hand along the wing, he gently straightened the disjointed feathers. How did angels go about grooming their wings? Did they even groom them?

Lucifer hummed happily in Sam's arms. Sam crossed the room to sit on the edge of the bed, but eventually pulled himself up onto it so that he could just hold Lucifer. This was nice, he thought, as his mind settled, focusing entirely on the fledgling until he dozed off.

Sam woke to shouting, but the first thing he really noticed was the absence of a weight on his chest, or warmth on his shoulder. Lucifer must have wiggled away while he was sleeping, he thought. It didn't sadden him though, because the fact that an angel had let him touch his wings at all was pretty unbelievable to Sam. Maybe Lucifer had taken all he could handle of Sam's tainted soul.

"You smote Cas! Why the hell should I hold you?!" Dean was shouting. "You're not a baby! You're just another one of those fucking bag of dicks!"

Sam blinked, taking a moment to look around the room. Why was Dean screaming? Neither fledgling was in sight, and as he blinked away the rest of sleep, Sam realized that Dean should not be swearing at the fledglings. He liked them, he really did. Why did it matter that Raphael had smote Cas? God brought him back, didn't he. And Lucifer, maybe he'd gotten the short straw, but even if he hadn't, Michael had made it very clear that this wasn't the same Lucifer. This was the Lucifer that got his redemption and Sam respected that.

"What are you shouting about, Dean?" Sam asked as he stepped warily out into the hallway, anticipating a battle zone from the way Dean was carrying on. The hallway was…. Surprisingly clean. Spotless, really. What was the problem? And there was Dean, standing at the top of the stairs, staring at the cowering fledglings a few feet in front of him, between Dean and Sam.

"Sam! Do you know who they are?! Michael brought fledgling archangels here!"

Sam didn't answer. He wasn't sure what the problem was, but knowing Dean, it would probably be better to let him get his rage out of his system. The fledglings backed away from Dean as they saw Sam approaching. He raised a brow as they clung to his legs.

"Lucifer was in the Cage for a reason, Sam! And you let him into our house?!"

"Yes, Dean. I had to. Michael explained the situation and right now, we're all that they got and they're not the same angels that we knew them as."

"You don't know that! They could be scheming behind our backs to kills us in our sleep right now for all we know! We can't trust them, Sam!"

"So? They're just kids, Dean!"

"Are you serious right now? They're brainwashing you if you believe that we can trust these little fuckers. Especially these two! Raphael smote Castiel! And didn't Lucifer give you nightmares for weeks to get you to say yes? Why would you just forgive them like that!"

"You think I don't know that? I was there, Dean! If you can't see that they're not the same angels that we knew, then that's your problem. Michael said-"

"My problem?! Are you shitting me right now? And what's this about what Michael said? Since when did the two of you start having heart to heart conversations when you won't even talk to me?! You didn't even want to talk to him on the phone this morning! Lover's squabble? You're making bad choices Sam!"

Sam blinked. The fuck was Dean going on about? "What are you talking about? Michael talked to me when he dropped the fledglings off yesterday! And maybe if Michael hadn't been worried that you would react the way you're reacting right now, he would have told you himself! And why the fuck would you think we're having a lover's squabble? I've met Michael exactly thrice and two of those times were just long enough for him to bring me back from the dead!"

"That didn't stop you from fucking a damn demon! How many times did you meet Ruby before you starting boning her and drinking her blood, huh Sam?! It was like you had turned into a fucking vampire, Sammy! A blood sucking monster fiend, with... with, demonic powers to boot!"

Sam blinked again, anger dissipating. "You…. you really felt that way?" Sam didn't know how to feel with that revelation. "Once we'd finally, finally realized what lengths the angels were taking for the apocalypse, and you'd never mentioned it again, I'd thought that maybe you hadn't really said it. That it was just another cruel means to an end."

Dean stalked towards Sam. Sam would have backed up, but the fledglings were still clinging to him and he just wanted them to not get hurt. That was all he wanted.

The fledglings saw Dean approaching and lowered themselves towards the ground even as they still clung to Sam, making themselves smaller. There were tears. It was loud and they were frightened. " **Rit Zien** ," Raphael whispered near the same moment that Lucifer was begging Ephraim to " _Come here, Ephraim."_

Dean stopped less than a foot from Sam. "Maybe Dad was right. Maybe you were a lost cause from the moment you left for Stanford."

"But then Michael wouldn't have his family back and everything would be a mess."

Sam and Dean did not recognize the angel in a blonde vessel that appeared a few steps in front of the stairs. Giggling, Raphael tugged on Lucifer's arm and then toddled back in the direction of the room they'd woken up in. He whispered " **Rit Zien, Rit Zien** ** _,_** " in a sing-song way as he went. Lucifer followed on his heels.

"Don't tell Michael, but I even checked a few alternate realities because I wanted to know what the future would have been like if things had happened a little differently." He shuddered. "Angels go extinct, like, 90% of the time. Not cool."

"Who're you?" Sam's voice was quiet. Wary, but not belligerent in its wariness. Mostly, Sam was just tired. And he wished, more fervently than he had in a while, that he hadn't even gotten out of bed. Or better yet, had never been born. _Dean hated him._

"Uh-uh, that's now how it works out. The alternate universe I found in which you two had never been born was like, one the worst off of all of them, as far as humans were concerned. And maybe most angels would consider that better than angels going extinct, but how come no one ever asks what happens to humans when angels go extinct?"

"And just what exactly is the best case scenario?" Dean asked. "And who the hell are you?"

"I'm Ephraim," the angel replied. "Rit Zien. That's the garrison of Healers. Best case scenario, the Cage never existed. Next best scenario? You're probably living it. I don't appreciate that one of you made my brothers cry, but you're also under Michael's protection."

"And what are you going to do about it? Take the fledglings and leave!" Dean shouted.

"Michael wants them here so no, they're not going anywhere. But how about instead of screaming at your brother for things you have no business screaming at him for, you show me where you make your food." Ephraim grabbed Dean by the arm and then bodily pulled him in the direction he wanted to go.

Sam blinked, watching the two disappear towards the kitchen, and sank down onto the floor. What the hell was he supposed to do now? The world hadn't ended and the apocalypse was over, so everything was supposed to be _good_ now. But that wasn't the case, because Dean couldn't see past the fact that it was _Lucifer and demon blood._ He had wondered, a little bit, if Lucifer had been just trying to get his sympathy when he told his side of the story, but the Michael that had brought the fledglings to the bunker had made it sound like he hadn't agreed either, though the Michael that had spoken to Dean in the past had been all for it. _Unless Michael had been acting for his own purposes. Needed Sam and Dean to say yes so he could_ talk _to his brother._ But Dean wasn't even Michael's true vessel, so where the hell did that leave him? Because either he was Lucifer's vessel, or he wasn't.

There was a flash of light inside the room the fledglings had disappeared into. Sam wondered at it, but a giggle from one of the fledglings led him to believe that whatever it was, it was fine. The first flash of light was followed by a second, and then a third, and then a few brighter flashes of light all at once, and Sam decided he really didn't want to know.

Sam lost count of the flashes of light, but he was glad the fledglings hadn't been more adversely affected by Dean's shouting. Kids were hardy like that, he guessed. Or maybe fledglings that were millennia old weren't as affected by things like humans screaming at them because the entire life of a human was hardly a breath in the span of an angel's life and Sigyn's children had lived for many immortal lifetimes.

He needed coffee. Sam didn't really want to go to the kitchen, but he'd have to face his brother eventually and maybe better to do so with Ephraim here. Rit Zien. That was a word Michael had used, but Sam wasn't familiar with it. It must have been Enochian. The Healers.

Sam passed by the bedroom on his way to the kitchen. There were a large number of people - _angels-_ surrounding the fledglings. The furniture was all gone and they were all lying in a happy cuddly pile on the floor. _The fuck?_ Deciding that he didn't have the energy or means to deal with that at the moment, he shook his head and made his way to the kitchen.

Dean and Ephraim were sitting at the table in silence. There was a package of frozen peas on the table across from Dean.

There was coffee in the coffee pot, so Sam poured himself a cup. He wasn't sure how Dean would react to the angels in the fledglings' room, but he wanted to make sure it was okay. Warily, he approached the table and sat across from Dean. "Ephraim? Why are there angels with the fledglings?"

"There are?" Ephraim closed his eyes and a moment later nodded. "The fledglings called out to the rest of my garrison… I'm not sure why."

"Like Hell!" Dean was back to yelling in an instant. Sam couldn't help folding into himself. _Dean hated him_. "We're so done with angels! Michael promised angels wouldn't bother us any more!"

Ephraim shrugged. "My garrison is not here for you and will not bother you. You can take it up with Michael when he gets back." Ephraim picked up the frozen peas and held them out to Sam.

Sam raised an eyebrow at the ice pack. "What is that for?"

Ephraim tilted his head in the way all the angels seemed to do. "Doesn't it hurt?"

Sam swallowed. A healer who couldn't tell the difference between physical and emotional pain. _Great_. "That won't help."

"I can heal you," Ephraim stated.

"No," Sam growled. Still not that kind of pain.

Ephraim waved the bag of peas in Sam's face. Sam snatched the peas because he just knew this angel was going to have the patience to be infinitely annoying and wave it at him for hours. He put it on his face because he didn't have the energy to deal with someone waving anything in his face for an extended period of time. Better to take it and put it on his face to humor the angel and deprive him of his toy. And it was cold. It was cold and maybe going numb would give him something to think about other than the fact that his brother had fucking called him a _blood sucking fiend_.

* * *

They all turn towards the voice and saw Hela standing before them.

"Hela!" Loki exclaimed.

The young woman grinned. "I'll be glad to get out of here," she said. "That's why you're here, right? So we can go home?"

"That's right," Sigyn said. "Are you alright?"

"I'm okay," Hela replied. She sniffled. "It's just, being here, it puts everything in perspective, you know? This lifetime, it mostly sucked."

Loki huffed. "You three and your siblings were the best part of this universe, I promise."

"That's what I mean though. The last thirty years on Earth, they were good. Really good. And the last few days, since Raph healed Luci, those were even better because our family is finally whole again, right?"

Loki swallowed. "Not true. There were six beings in our care in the first universe. Four archangels we looked after voluntarily, and two that were born."

Sigyn just shook her head sadly. "I'd always wondered why I could never bare children, but it had never occurred to me that I had before."

Hela stepped close to Sigyn, as did Gabriel. "It's okay, Mom," Fenrir said. "We'll find them."

Gabriel closed his eyes for a moment before breaking out into a grin. "I don't know why, but I can feel Michael on this plane. He's down from here."

"There's another angel too," Fen agreed. "I can't quite make out who it is."

"Jor should be down there," Loki said. "In the water around the roots of the Yggdrasil."

"Then let's go."

Sleipnir and Loki opened the way to the roots of Yggdrasil so they could climb down to the waters surrounding the world.

* * *

"Do you think Mom and Dad learned anything interesting while they were here?" Michael asked while they waited for their family to finish descending the tree.

Jor shrugged. "It felt like a really long time, but I guess I don't know how time passes down here. Either they learned something or they didn't. I remembered how much I hated my solitary confinement. It wasn't as bad as Fen's, because at least I didn't have a sword in my mouth, and I guess Hela got to be cold for centuries, but at least I could have slept in Niflheimr. I got to be wet for centuries, with no room to stretch out because if I didn't have my tail in my mouth I didn't have enough space."

"It was bad for all of us, Jor. I had eight legs and people rode on me as though I was just a beast of burden and there was this horrid halter on my face for millennia!" Sleipnir slid down the tree root, jumping from it like a slide before he'd even reached the body. His teen sized body started growing as soon as he left the tree and by the time he hit the water, his vessel was back to normal.

Castiel was next and he froze when his gaze fell on the angel a few steps from Michael. "Balthazar." His tone was frigid. It was colder than he'd spoken to anyone since before Gabriel had been trapped in the holy oil. Balthazar was alive? But he'd spent centuries thinking his almost twin was dead.

Gabriel and Michael both glanced at Castiel in concern as Balthazar broke into the grin that Michael thought was more a defense mechanism than finding any actual humor in the situation.

"Hey, Cas! Fancy running into you again."

Castiel stalked towards Balthazar. "We thought you were dead. We mourned you, _I_ mourned you. Balthy… you could have told me. I might have gone with you."

"I couldn't tell you. What if Naomi has ripped it from your head? If she thought you knew where I was, how would that have gone for you?"

"What about what it did to Anna? You broke her heart. She'd have gone with you, but she got sent to reeducation so many times she cut out her grace!"

Balthazar was wincing. "She…. Anna cut out her grace?"

"We were so close, surely you remember that much? And Anna…. Naomi had it out for her. In the end, she only remembered that pain. Naomi had removed you from her memories but the emotion was still there. She cut out her grace so she could start over." Castiel frowned. "You should have asked her to go. She would have."

"And if Naomi had found us? What then, Cas?"

Castiel shook his head. "It might have gone better." He spoke with an air of finality. "The last time she went to reeducation- it broke her."

Castiel and Balthazar were still arguing, but Michael wasn't paying them any attention. He blinked. Anna. The angel released from reeducation that had gone into the past to kill Mary before Sam and Dean could ever be born. He'd had to stop her.

Could he bring her back? Technically, he was capable of resurrecting angels, but he'd have to go back to when and where she'd been killed. So what about not killing her in the first place? As long as everyone thought she was dead, it wouldn't create a paradox. Pull her from her vessel and set it on fire? It was her human body so there was no one else sharing it with her. He could pull that off, couldn't he?

Hela, Sigyn, and Loki had been farther behind Gabriel and Castiel, but they finished descending the tree and into the water.

"Michael? Where are we?" Sigyn asked, interrupting Balthazar from continuing the conversation.

"This is Limbo," Michael replied. "It's in the deepest reaches of hell. I found some extra information on the spell, apparently it is normal for it to send people to other dimensions. I'm not sure why."

Gabriel looked up at the giant ash tree. "Yggdrasil is really here where the Cage used to be?"

"The tree is real enough, but the dimensions contained by the tree should be memory," Michael replied. "Was it okay?"

"Auntie Amara was a bitch," Gabriel declared. He walked over to Michael. "You should remember this for yourself, you were there." He held out a hand.

Michael winced, but agreed. Gabriel placed his palm on Michael's arm. He remembered the emotions before he remembered the events. His first impression was love. Love for his siblings and love for the benevolent being that had created them. These feelings were not unfamiliar. They were the same that he'd held as a fledgling in this universe. Except He wasn't benevolent in the first universe. Michael remembered the fear for his siblings safety and fear of whatever malevolent beings Auntie Amara had created.

Except Amara's children could have been the poster children of benevolence. The two adults had felt only mercy towards the four fledglings that believed they were supposed to kill them. And love. Michael remembered watching in amazement as Mirim and Muriah built a tent out of Enochian sigils. The adults had taken care of them, loved them, made sure they were happy and healthy. There had been only joy, no jealousy, when their family of six had gained two additional fledglings.

But then Light and Dark had come after them. Loki, who had been Muriah then, had created some portal to get them to safety, but it had scattered them to various universes with no memory of the beginning. He, and Gabriel, and Lucifer had ended up being born in Asgard while Raphael had ended up here. _And what about Samael and Daniel?_ They would find them.

"How do we get out of Limbo?" Hela asked.

"We fly," Castiel replied. "Gabriel?"

"On it," Gabriel replied. "Michael, you alright?"

Michael nodded, pulling away from the revelations in his mind. "We'll have to fly all together."

* * *

They flew. The angels spread their wings around the four that couldn't fly and took off.

It was far from instantaneous. It took longer to ascend than it took for Balthazar and Michael to fall.

Sigyn was warm. The four angels encircled the four that were not and the grace wrapped securely around them felt like a cozy blanket. Sigyn couldn't see, but she could feel it. She didn't have a soul, but she had a core, and she could feel the warmth from their grace all the way inside her. It was a pleasant feeling that resonated inside her. _She could remember this._

" _Mom_?" Michael whispered to Sigyn. " _What's wrong?"_

Sigyn realized she'd wiggled to scratch at her shoulder. _"Sorry_. _Itch."_ The itching sensation in her shoulder increased.

 _"I don't want to drop you,"_ Michael replied.

The itch grew and Sigyn wished she could scratch it. One of her fingers rubbed against what felt like one of her children's feathers and before she could exclaim in surprise, she was taken back to memories of huge golden yellow wings spread on the grass. Loki's orange-brownish feathers mixed with hers as they looked upon the sky, her oldest fledglings taking flight. Diving in the air, the feeling of the wind in her hair, the fluffiness of clouds as her fingertips brushed on them. As she opened her eyes, her wings, which until that very moment were hidden and forgotten, unfurled as she left the security of her children's arms.

"Mom!" She heard their voices in different tones of bewilderment in her mind.

"Sigyn!" called her husband as he too was flooded with memories of long wings open in the air. The feeling of rain as he sheltered one of his smallest children. Once, when Samael was a baby, he had tugged and mouthed a particular set of feathers. Thing 3 had once started a molt and found feathers on the floor. He'd come to Mirim and Muriah in tears, asking if he was going to be featherless. Loki had proceeded to explain to the young fledgling how molting worked and that he wouldn't end up featherless. Fledglings molted more often than adults, as their childhood feathers were replaced by their adult ones.

Loki let himself go from the warm grace of his children and in a quick motion flew over their heads, bursting out of Limbo and into the sky, smiling bright as his wings spread open in the sky. Before any of them could say anything he was hugging his wife, wings surrounding her as he caught her lips in happiness. Suddenly everything was returning to place. Little pieces that were lost forever connecting once again.

Sigyn grinned as she pulled her head away to get a better look at her partner. "Race you," she whispered, a mischievous expression on her face. "Race you all the way around the planet."

"You're on," Loki agreed, wings empowering him in a random direction.

Their children watched, smiling, as Sigyn took off after Loki.

Jor looked at Balthazar. "Know any good taverns in Wizarding London? I would definitely take you up on that offer for some firewhiskey."

"Can I come too?" Hela asked. "They brew some pretty good stuff. I haven't had any in years."

"Sure, why not." Balthazar looked over at Michael. "We good to go?"

Michael shrugged. "Don't do anything Gabriel wouldn't do."

Balthazar gave Michael a look of, 'What the fuck does that mean?' and then he escorted the two siblings to his favorite tavern.

Michael looked over at Castiel and Gabriel. "I left the fledglings with the Winchesters. Why don't we all go?"

* * *

AN: Digital cookies for anyone who tries to guess Jormungandr's wizarding identity.


	9. Chapter 9

AN: This chapter could not have been written without my proofreaders. It also wouldn't have been possible without a friend in real-life who sat with me at more than one two hour meal to help me map out this chapter. I was kind of terrified that this story was never going to end.

I appreciate each and every person reading this. Thank you for joining me on this wild ride. This story is complete, but I promise there'll be more. Michael hasn't fixed heaven yet... Here's your spoiler for the next story in this universe. The title will be "Trickster's Dragons."

* * *

Michael, Castiel, and Gabriel flew into the bunker and entered the kitchen through the door. Dean was sitting on one side of the table glaring at the table. Sam was sitting across from him, glaring at Ephraim. There was an ice pack in his hand, which he was holding to his cheek. With the other hand he was stirring a cup of coffee.

Ephraim was sitting between Dean and Sam. He was grinning at Sam like a child with too much candy. "Won't you please let me heal that?" he was asking.

"No," Sam grumbled. "It's fine."

Michael stepped further into the room, drawing the attention of Dean, who was facing in the direction of the door. "You!"

"Dean, stop. Just-" Sam realized that Dean wasn't trying to start something else with Ephraim and that he was actually looking at someone new, so Sam looked over his shoulder to find that Michael and Castiel had returned.

"I want the ream of angels your fledglings called to leave the bunker!" Dean shouted.

"There are not five hundred angels in the bunker," Castiel said. "There are not five hundred angels in any garrison."

Michael blinked. He looked at Ephraim. "Why is the entire Rit Zien here?"

"The fledglings were upset by someone," Sam said, casting a glance back at Dean, "and I was unable to get them sufficiently distracted before they somehow managed to summon the entire garrison."

"Yeah, but you're the one who thought killing Lilith and opening the Cage was a brilliant way to spend an afternoon!" Dean yelled.

Sam bolted. All the demon blood may have been burned from his blood following the death of Lilith, but it had only changed psychic abilities that had already existed in his soul. Ephraim may have spent the last hour badgering Sam into allowing him to heal the hunter, but he hadn't realized that all the pain wasn't just the physical injury because while his sensors were doing better, it was still difficult to distinguish one from the other. Especially when one soul had as much emotional anguish as Samuel Winchester.

Sam may have thought he was bolting, or tried to bolt, but his soul took it one step further. Samuel Winchester's soul was hurt, so it did the only thing it could think of. It leapt in an effort to get away from what was causing it pain, to get as far away as possible. He vanished.

Dean stopped mid tirade because Sam was gone. Not, fell out of his chair, or got up and ran away kind of gone, but disappeared-into-the-air kind of gone. "The fuck? Sammy! Get back here!"

"Sam?" he called, his voice now more worried than angry.

The angels looked at the space Sam had disappeared from.

* * *

Sam wasn't sure where he was beyond the fact that it was cold and high up. He dropped the frozen peas and looked around. Had he been kidnapped? There was no one and nothing around him. It was quiet, except the wind was blowing, scattering the icy snow around like sand in a desert.

Why was he _here_ of all places? It wasn't bad, and honestly, it was kind of nice to be outside the bunker. Michael and Cas wouldn't let Dean do anything to the fledglings, so he didn't need to be the buffer between all the things that would never be capable of loving him.

If Michael decided Dean was not to be trusted with the fledglings, did that mean he would never get to see them again? Sam ached with that thought, but he guessed that made sense. His soul was tainted. He was lucky Michael had let them anywhere near him to begin with.

Sam sat in silence. The biting cold was pleasant in it's numbing embrace. Maybe if he sat here long enough, the internal pain would go away too. Wasn't that why the healer had offered him an ice pack?

He honestly had no idea how long he sat there. Long enough for the cold to seep into his bones. Long enough to know that hypothermia could be a possible concern and to not remember why that mattered. But it did matter, because even if he was a mess that didn't deserve love, he wasn't ready to give up yet.

 _"Michael? I'm sorry about Dean. I'm really glad you let us babysit the fledglings anyway- It's not my place, but maybe this way Lucifer gets the redemption he deserves."_

Sam had wondered what it would take to work towards his own redemption. Dean blamed him for the apocalypse and maybe he'd had a point. He'd died and Dean had gone to hell. That was when all this had first come to a head.

There was a whistling of wings beating against the air and Sam curled into himself. "Go 'way." He liked the solitude of this mountain side. He didn't need company to come chew him out for anything else. Dean had already made it amply clear exactly how he felt.

"Sam…" The voice belonged to Michael. _Of course- you are the one who who thought praying was a good idea._

Sam didn't respond. Maybe if he ignored the archangel he would get bored and go back to whatever important things he'd been doing before.

"Sam, will you let me take you someplace warm? Your core temperature is below normal standards for humans."

He closed his eyes. Hypothermia. Well, not yet, but it could turn into that. Sam found that he couldn't bring himself to care. That would be numbing. More numbing than a stupid ice pack. "Stop pretending."

"I'm sorry? Sam, what are you talking about?"

"Uriel called me an abomination and Castiel's first greeting was to call me the boy with the demon blood. I was so excited to meet Cas, Dean had so many good things to say about him, and he was an angel. I realize now that the portrayal of angels by humans is wrong, but I didn't _know_ and I was so excited because my belief in a higher power was what got me through childhood! And then it turned out to be real and I was just so excited!" He realized that he was rambling, probably due to reduced cranial function from the cold, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Michael didn't like him anyways

"But there must be something wrong with me. He wouldn't even shake my hand until I'd all but thrown myself at him in my excitement and all he could do was hesitantly take my hand, like he was examining my veins and seeing for himself how tainted my soul really was. "Sam Winchester" he said, "the boy with the demon blood, I'm glad to see you ceased your extracurricular activities." So why are you treating me so kindly? You walked me through why Lucifer was more the victim and that he deserved this redemption, _and he let me hold him_ , but they can see it too, so why are you all pretending that it's okay?!"

"Sam…" Michael crouched in the snow behind the younger Winchester and put a hand on his shoulder. "Sam, what do you think the demon blood did to your soul?"

"Tainted it? Poisoned it? Blacked my soul so that even heaven would reject it? Turned it into some hybrid demon _thing_ that shouldn't exist and that's _why_ Uriel called me an abomination."

 _Oh Sam_. "Your soul is beautiful, Sam. Human souls are beautiful, but let me tell you about yours." If Sam wasn't going to let him move him to someplace where he wouldn't get hypothermia, then Michael was just going to have to lend a hand. With the hand that wasn't on Sam's shoulder, he carefully reached for Sam's soul like he had when he'd stopped Zachariah from killing the Winchesters. "Is this okay?"

The feeling was weird, but Sam decided it was pleasant. It also wasn't something he thought it was worth fighting over. He was cold, but that didn't bother him and whatever the feeling was, it was definitely warm. "- 's good." He waited for Michael to continue speaking about the state of his soul, but the archangel said nothing, continuing to do whatever that was. "My soul?" he prodded.

"Yes." Michael continued petting Sam's soul. How had it gotten here? Human souls weren't designed for traveling distances like this. It couldn't have been from the demon blood. Sam had been clean for most of a year and that that wasn't one of his psychic abilities. "Your soul has been through more than most souls ever go through, even the ones that reincarnate. But it's not black, or tainted, Sam. It's bright. Scarred a little bit from the blood just as you are scarred from your many battles, but they don't define your soul, Sam. Just like your many scars don't define you. Your soul is old, Sam. Ancient. But considering everything it's gone through just that I know about, it's come out in better condition than anyone could have anticipated or expected."

"How ancient?" Sam asked curiously, his seemingly insatiable drive for knowledge prompting him to speak. "Early human history? Can you tell who I was before?"

"Let's see," Michael said. "Were you a scholar or a mage?" Souls that reincarnated like Sam's had long memories. The vessels that held their souls didn't have the mental capacity to remember everything like the angels and archangels.

It took a delicate touch and most of his expertise, but Michael was able to finesse the soul into a position where he could run his hand across Sam's soul to get a better read on it without harming him. Ancient didn't begin to describe the first drop of water in the sea of memories he found. Wizarding scribe, librarian, psychic counselor.

Michael reached the end of Sam's memories of earth before he realized that Sam Winchester was not an archangel's true vessel. This soul was older than this universe. There was no way he could be Lucifer's true vessel. The old soul that would have been his vessel would have to originate in this universe.

"What do you see?" Sam asked.

"Your soul is very old. I can't tell yet exactly how old, but it did not originate in this universe." Michael was not sure of those implications yet. "You're not Lucifer's true vessel."

Sam tried to take that in. Not Lucifer's vessel. "I'm… not? But I broke the last seal. My brother is the righteous man. I thought that meant I was. He told me I was."

"He might have tried. You might have said yes and he might have possessed you, but it would not have been a true fit. It's possible Lucifer wouldn't have even noticed. But as you saw, he's a fledgling right now. Fledglings aren't capable of taking vessels and they will not be fully grown again for centuries."

"So, how old is my soul?" Sam asked again. "In what universe did I originate?"

"I'll look," Michael repeated. He reached into the soul, looking for defining moments that he could use to identify age of his soul.

 _A surgeon, black plague era, kneeling over the haggard body of a young child, as the child's breathing turned ragged, sadness filled his eyes, the only thing about his face not covered by the medicinal mask he wore._

 _Deep, panting breaths worked his way through his lungs, and the breathing of others echoed in his ears. He didn't know what the object in his hand was at first, but wisps of memories told him it was a handheld weapon, and that he was stuck in a battle for his life. A murmur of voices in a language he no longer recognized from behind him, a glance back had him realizing these were teenagers he was leading, and that it was his job to get them to the other rebels safely._

 _Surrounded by books, a librarian, walking slowly among them, the weight of the intricate and curling horns that circled his head and shoulders felt strangely familiar. No,_ her _head in this life, and forever on the cusp of societal ruin, he realized, as she/Sam passed a mottled group of strangers and beckoned for them to follow her. She knelt in a shallow archway and pulled upon a narrow trap door, revealing a hidden tunnel with which to usher these refugees out of the city, and hopefully, towards safety._

Michael came to the one of the earliest memory in Sam's soul. _"Mama, why can't we go play outside?" The question was asked, not by this soul, but by another._

 _"I'm sorry."_ Michael knew that voice. Michael remembered this. _"It's not safe. If Light and Dark were to find us here, they might try to separate us. It's safer if we stay inside here."_

 _"Forever?"_ Samuel Winchester's soul asked.

 _"I'm sorry,"_ she repeated. _"I wish there was another way."_

 _"It's okay,"_ Thing 3, Michael, said. He remembered this. _"We can play in here. Samael, Daniel, come see what we built!"_

The soul pushed back against Michael, but it didn't matter. _Michael remembered what happened next. They'd all played in another room until the six of them had fallen into an exhausted slumber curled around one another in the arms of their parents. They'd woken to find the wards being attacked and then Muriah had cast a portal spell. A spell that had scattered them through the futures of other universes. This was one of Sigyn's two missing children._

"Mica?"

Michael pushed aside the memory, focusing on the chilled human in front of him. The human pulled away from the hand on his shoulder and rolled over so that he was facing Michael. "Yes, Sam?"

"That last memory… was it real?" There was a tremor in Sam's voice and he worried at his lip. Hopeful, but also afraid.

"It was," Michael replied, "Little Brother."

Sam shivered. He moved his head towards Michael, arms stretching toward him involuntarily. The archangel would be warm, and even though he would never express the need out loud, at that moment all he wanted was just to be held in the warm embrace of the archangel.

The archangel leaned towards Sam, putting his arms around the young hunter and shifting him towards Michael's lap. His wings moved to block the sharp and icy wind.

Sam was warm. The archangel was wrapped around him like a heated blanket, and even though he couldn't see Michael's wings, he could feel them. Was this what it felt like to be loved?

"Are you ready to go?" Michael asked some time later, his voice a quiet rumble. Sam wasn't quite sure whether or not he had fallen asleep. "We don't have to go to the bunker. We could go anywhere."

Sam sighed. Dean had probably freaked over him disappearing and he should go back. Except he didn't really want to deal with his brother - _other brother?-_ right now and he didn't think Michael would let anything happen to him. "Okay," he relented finally. "Can we go get something to eat?"

* * *

"Where did he go?" Dean asked, panic rising. _The hell, Sammy?_

"Calm down, Deano. I'm sure Sam is fine," Gabriel told him, resting his hand on his shoulder.

"Calm down? Calm down? Gabriel! My little brother, the very reason I fucking exist is god knows where! He just poofed! Did you not see that? He poofed! Like some freaking fairy shit thing!"

"So dramatic," murmured Ephraim, feeling the hunter's fear. He wished to calm him and relieve him of his pain but at the same time being held back by Castiel. This wasn't the time. Dean needed to vent out his frustrations, otherwise he might combust. And it wasn't fair to Sam for Dean to go back to shouting at his little brother when his anger was just a mask for his frustration at everything else. It would be best for them both for Dean to get it all out before Sam returned.

Gabriel felt something different in his soul, as the molecules of Dean's skin were in contact with his, stirring under his touch. Why was this soul so young and still so old? It was like he couldn't determine the exact age. He was created at the same moment as another soul was, but somehow they were separated. Twins, perhaps, like Nari and Vali? Maybe that was the actual reason as to why Dean was so connected to Sam. So codependent? The reason as to why his eyes were always on the younger boy, following his every move, even when his words were sharp as a knife?

"Why the fuck are you staring at me like that?!"

"Oh, well. It's your soul."

"Possibly more tainted than Sammy's," Dean mumbled.

"Oh, _Father_ , what is it with you Winchesters?" Ephraim complained. "Souls don't taint the way you're thinking!"

"It's not like you wake up a day thinking you want a big piece of chocolate, but you are on a diet, and that would be a sin or whatever and you get a dark spot, like a dalmatian! That's absurd," Castiel added, clearly already having discussed such nonsense with them before, but being completely ignored.

"Eating pie on a diet is a sin?" Dean raised an eyebrow.

"No!" Gabriel sighed. "Okay, let's take something that really is a sin, like, murdering someone. That's a big no-no. And before you get all self-righteous about self-defence, let's say this is genuinely premeditated murder. What happens to the soul that did it?"

"It goes to hell?"

"Eventually, yes. Assuming that the person who committed the murder does nothing to atone for it, and has no intention of doing so. If the soul has done more bad things than good things, then the soul is going to be dark and go to hell. If a soul does more good things than bad things, it goes to heaven. Are you familiar with the Egyptian idea of a Scale of Judgement?"

Dean nodded. "That's where the heart of a dead person is weighed against the feather of truth, right? Dog eats the person if the feather is lighter and they go on to their happily ever after if it's lighter than the feather?"

"Yes," Gabriel replied. "Think of souls being measured in a similar way, except it's more like good deeds vs evil deeds. More good deeds and you go to heaven and more bad deeds and you go to hell."

"What the hell does that have to do with demon blood?" Dean asked.

"In normal souls, ones that live one life and move on to an afterlife, it might make them more inclined to do things that would land them in hell, but otherwise has very little to do with anything because if a person is determined to not sin, they probably aren't going to. Being exposed to demon blood involuntarily is not their fault. They didn't make that choice. Inherited sin isn't a thing and there's also this thing called the age of accountability. That's not an exact science. The point I'm making is that the demon blood itself is not really the problem."

"So why did Uriel call Sam an abomination?"

"Being exposed to demon blood as an infant is not the same as willingly devouring it." Gabriel grimaced, as though the very thought of doing so was unnerving.

"But Sam did ingested it later on his own free will," Dean retorted, as a matter of fact. "So what did it do to his soul?"

"Or did he? Manipulated by that demon, terrified of losing you again. What did you expect from him, Dean? He is just a kid. You sold your soul to bring him back and he loves you more than he can put into words. Why is so hard for you to tell him you love him just as much?" Gabriel wondered. "You sold your soul, you said yes to Michael. Why is it such a surprise that he would allow himself to be manipulated by a demon if he thought it meant bringing you back?" He shook his head. _Some lessons._ "Anyway, who knows what willingly drinking blood would do to a soul that is going to go happily on to the after life at death. Why would anyone do that? It's like drinking sulfur, tar, and asphalt that have all been set on fire. Then again, maybe some people like that. I wouldn't know. As for souls that are set to reincarnate, like Sam's, well, think of it as more of a "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," kind of thing. It could damage a soul, scar it little like poison or injuries do to your physical body. Except it's a soul. When souls stop reincarnating, they're measured by the whole of their lifetimes. Do you understand yet?"

Dean considered. "Sam's soul isn't tainted because even though demon blood is nasty stuff, it doesn't inherently hurt a soul?" The angels nodded, all three internally relieved that the elder Winchester wasn't as dense as they'd started suspecting him to be. "So why did Uriel call him an abomination?"

"You're actually considering believing that asshat?!" _You have got to be kidding me._ "No, Dean, your brother is not an abomination. Human souls are beautiful, even the ones with scars." Gabriel considered the soul beneath his hand. "Do you mind if I do a little soul searching? It won't hurt you. I simply want to see from where you're originally came." Gabriel asked him, his hand reaching towards Dean's chest. "Your soul is young and old and I'd like to figure out why it thinks it's both, beyond the time you spent in hell."

"I guess," he agreed, exhaling and trying to relax under Gabriel's warm touch.

The first thing Gabriel saw and felt was happiness, security, warmth, blood, Dean was sharing his space with another soul inside their mother, laughter could be heard, a loving touch and a song were sang.

It jumped to different sets of memories, Dean as a rock star, a mechanic, a business man with spouse and kids, but in each life, something or rather someone was missing and Gabriel couldn't grasp why.

He dug deeper, almost as far as he could go, and he found a memory that clearly upset Dean more than he dared to admit to anyone.

He was running after his little brother, his father and mother right behind them, their siblings, _siblings_ , hiding from them. It was dark and he couldn't see, couldn't tell where anyone was. His little brother was right in front of him, right where he was supposed to be, until he wasn't. The ground didn't exist anymore and there was nothing. It was an expanse in which there was absolutely nothing, and for an endless time that didn't exist, he was all alone. He couldn't move, or see, and he was well aware that none of his siblings were here, but what hurt the most wasn't that they weren't here, but that he had lost his _little brother. His twin._ His soul cried but there was no answer, just a vast expanse, empty of anything.

Another memory juggled up, an even older one from near the beginning, but this was one Gabriel himself was intimately familiar with. It was of himself holding Thing 7. He could see himself through Dean's eyes. He was a mere fledgling, wings gold and fluffy, white teeth grinning at the baby, peppering little kisses on his chubby cheeks.

"Daniel." Gabriel whispered in a breathe that Castiel could hear.

* * *

Michael and Sam returned to the bunker after nightfall. Dean was sitting at the kitchen table looking chastised and Cas was leaning against the wall with this arms crossed.

Castiel heard Michael's entrance before Dean looked up. "Ephraim sent the Rit Zien back to heaven and Gabriel took the fledglings home."

Dean looked up. "Sam…" Castiel glared at him, but Dean continued. "Sam, are you okay?"

Sam sighed, taking a seat across from Dean. The hours he had spent with Michael had helped him gain a little bit of perspective. Dean didn't _hate_ him and for right now, that was what mattered. He settled on, "I'm not sure. But that's okay too."

"Gabriel discovered something interesting about Dean's soul before he left," Castiel said. "He wanted to tell Mom, but they weren't back."

Michael tilted his head. "I learned something interesting too. Do you think they're back now? I think they'd like to hear this."

"Why?" Dean asked.

Castiel looked at Dean again. "I'm aware that John Winchester left something to be desired with his skills as a parent. But at the very least, Sigyn and Loki don't deserve to be left wondering what happened to the last of their children."

Dean rested his elbows on the table and put his hands on his face. "Okay," he said finally. "Okay."

* * *

Michael eventually made it back to heaven. His family still had their issues to work through and it wasn't perfect. But they'd make do. They always had. One of his sisters awaited his arrival. "Aphirial."

"Michael," she greeted in return. "I sorted the records for all the garrisons as you requested and I found an inconsistency."

"Yes?" Michael asked.

"There's a garrison that hasn't been heard by the choir since the Fall. A handful of them are still listed as alive and not fallen, but… no one knows where they are."

"Whose garrison was it?"

"It was Sahaquiel's garrison. Michael… it says she's still alive."


End file.
